The Day Harry Potter Died
by J R LeDoux
Summary: The day that Harry Potter died started like any other day, one might say. In fact, as we will soon find, that is perhaps the absolute perfect description you could give to this morning. Lots of different pairings due to time looping.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The day that Harry Potter died started like any other day, one might say. In fact, as we will soon find, that is perhaps the absolute perfect description you could give to this morning.

Harry awoke with a bit of a jolt. Although he'd slept soundly last night, and felt fully rested, movement in the dorm had been what brought him out of his sleep, and as Harry opened his eyes, he just caught the sight of Neville leaving the room. Harry looked at the window. It couldn't be much later than 6:30…

Annoyed, Harry turned over, and decided to sleep a bit more. He didn't know if he'd fallen back asleep, (it certainly didn't feel like it), but some time had seemed to pass, and by the time Harry had become aware of his surroundings once more, Ron was digging through his things, looking for something. It still looked like it was early morning outside. Glancing around the room, Harry realized that Dean and Seamus had already left.

"What're you looking for?" Harry asked slowly. It was a springtime Saturday… from the looks of it, a sunny one.

"You remember how I slipped away to use to loo last night after dinner?" Harry just blinked at Ron, waiting for him to continue. "Well… I came up here to get something for Gin afterward and there was a note on my bed." Harry was confused. Ron seemed so nervous… what had the note said?

"And?"

"And… it was… fromasecretadmirer." Ron flushed instantly, sticking his nose back in his trunk, continuing his search. Harry broke into a smile for his friend, but it still didn't explain why he was rifling through his things.

"So then what are you looking for?" Ron stopped and looked up at Harry, still flush, opening and closing his mouth several times.

"It… the note asked me… to come meet them by the lake this morning…" Ron looked away, obviously embarrassed again. "And it said… whoever wrote the note… well, they like my hair when it's swept back, like after a Quidditch game… so… I thought I'd… y'know… put it… like that."

Harry nodded, not knowing what else to say, and got out of bed pulling on his clothes for the day. By the time he'd finished brushing his teeth and came out of the bathroom, Ron was gone, apparently off to meet his match. Harry smiled again. Ron deserved some happiness.

Curiosity suddenly piquing, Harry walked over to the window and looked down at the lake to see if he could make out Ron and his secret admirer. He could see a person that was definitely Ron at the shore, yelling at someone with brown hair… she almost looked like Hermione.

Harry's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Had Hermione left the note for Ron? The idea made him a bit uneasy, and he wasn't completely certain why. Sure there were signs… but he felt kind of… sidelined; kind of jilted. He didn't want to be a third wheel.

Looking down at the shore, Harry saw another person standing next to the pair with long blond hair, and he saw another red-head approaching them. _That_ must be Ginny.

Staring intently, Harry tried to understand the conversation from the window by observing their body language, but all Harry could make out from that was Hermione shouting "You insensitive clod!" and Ron firing back "Why are you so difficult!?"

But after a few moments Harry gasped as Hermione slapped Ron across the face, storming off. Harry ran towards the dormitory door immediately running down to the common room. He was almost out the portrait-hole when he realized he'd left his wand back in his trunk. Running back up to his bed and grabbing his wand, he got down to the common room again to find Hermione sitting at one of the tables looking thoroughly upset.

Unsure, Harry glanced at the portrait-hole for a second before walking over to the table. They were the only two in the common room… and why not on such a beautiful Saturday morning? Everyone else was either at breakfast or out enjoying the sun.

As Harry got closer though he realized that Hermione wasn't just upset… her cheeks were a bit wet, and she didn't seem to be turning the pages of her book at all.

"Umm… hello Hermione," Harry offered lamely. "You alright?" She looked up at him with red eyes, but she didn't really look sad, and she didn't seem to be crying anymore. At least _that_ was a good thing… Harry didn't particularly like dealing with crying girls.

"Ron can be so dense sometimes," she stated simply. Harry shifted. He wasn't an expert on romance or the female species, but that statement seemed to say to him that Hermione had indeed been the one who left the note on Ron's bed.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Ron likes you too, he's just a bit slow, that's all." Harry smiled reassuringly. However quite unlike what Harry had been hoping, Hermione seemed to withdraw and become even moodier at the words of comfort. She closed her eyes and sighed, standing. When she opened her eyes again, Harry could tell that she was hurt. Perhaps he hadn't seen it before because she hadn't looked at him squarely, but she was definitely hurt.

"Sometimes you can be as dense as Ron," she nearly whispered before whisking past him to the girl's dorms, leaving Harry to try and understand what had just happened. He looked at the stairs, trying to put together what was going on. Girls were so _frustrating_ sometimes. Figuring that Ron might need someone to talk to as well, Harry stepped out of the portrait-hole and proceeded down the stairs to the entrance hall.

He could hear the chatter from the Great Hall… most people were still having breakfast. Walking out the front doors, Harry started down towards the lake's edge, only to see Ginny and Ron, er… "exchanging some words". He started to pick up the conversation as he drew closer.

"…as a brick! Honestly, why would you do something as stupid as that?" Ginny gave her brother a piercing gaze.

"How was I supposed to know she wasn't waiting for me? It was all just a big misunderstanding!" Harry continued approaching the pair curiously. Hermione hadn't been waiting for Ron? "I don't know why she got so upset; she just blew up at me!"

"And how do you think Luna feels!?" Harry looked past Ginny and for the first time identified the blond-haired witch that had been out on the grass. Had she left he note?

Ron looked uneasy at the question and glanced over at Luna. The normally spacey girl seemed to be paying rapt attention. Harry pondered jumping in to break the pair up when Luna seemed to preempt him.

"Ginny, thanks for being so supportive, but Ronald won't listen to what you're saying." Ginny looked at the girl, some of the anger draining from her flushed face. The blond girl stared at the two with her wide eyes that seemed to be eternally shocked, but at the moment felt much more knowing. "Really, I just wanted to have a talk with him by myself, but it looks like everyone has been having words with Ronald but me. Harry's even come out to say something."

Ginny and Ron both turned and noticed Harry for the first time, who suddenly felt very on-the-spot.

"Er, just wanted… to find out what was going on…" Ginny looked back at Ron, shooting him a final glare, before stomping up to Harry and grabbing his arm.

"C'mon," she said, starting to drag him away. "Let's leave them to chat." Harry followed her lead, and with a last glance over his shoulder, they passed through the Entrance Hall, heading in to have some breakfast.

"So what was that all about?" Harry asked the fiery girl. Ginny glanced at him before grabbing some toast.

"Luna left Ron a note asking him to meet her by the lake last night." She stopped and Harry waited for her to continue.

"Um… how did you know what was up?" he asked, trying to pry more information from her.

"Luna had me put the note on his bed." Harry nearly smacked himself in the forehead. Of course! How else would a Ravenclaw get a note onto the bed of a Gryffindor?

"But that doesn't explain Hermione or anything."

"Well…" Ginny trailed off and focused on her toast for a moment. "Ron saw Hermione at the lake and assumed she'd left the note." She glanced at Harry before looking back at her food. "You know how he's always fancied her."

It was something that was unspoken. Harry knew it, somewhere in the back of his mind; how could he not? But it wasn't something he'd ever talked about with Ron before, so in a sense it was something he didn't "know", merely something that he suspected. Ginny referencing it out loud seemed to make it uncomfortably clear for him, and Harry once again felt as if he were being forsaken… an appendage to his friends.

"But, of course, Ron approached it the way he approaches everything: head first." Ginny took a bite of her thoroughly buttered toast. "Too bad he's such an arse."

"What happened then?" Harry prompted.

"Well," she started, swallowing her food. "Ron waltzed up to Hermione and started talking about how glad he was that she finally came around, and that she didn't need to write anonymous notes to tell him she fancied him." Ginny sighed. "By the time Hermione figured out what he was on about, Ron had gone and dug himself a rather embarrassing and deep hole of assumptions. Hermione was not very pleased, and explained to Ron that she didn't think of him in that way, and that someone else must have left the note. Unfortunately, Ron's skull is thicker than Dean's… well, you know."

After a split second, Harry's brain caught up with his ears, and he blanched at Ginny. "Gin, I'm trying to have breakfast. No comparisons to anyone's bits." She rolled her eyes, and kept going.

"Ron thought that she was pulling a joke on him naturally, and laughed at her rebuffs, which upset Hermione quite a lot. So she explained a bit more forcefully." She paused, giving Harry a strange look. "You know how they can argue… well, one thing led to another, and before too long Ron was wheeling insults about Hermione being a bit, er, 'loose'. Mentioned stuff about Krum and such.

"Well that sent her a bit over the edge, and she yelled that perhaps Ron had left himself the note, since he seemed to admire himself so thoroughly." Ginny gave Harry that strange look again. "This is where it got a bit… out of hand. Ron threw back that she was one to talk about someone admiring themselves, when… when you were so admired by others and… and-admired-yourself-so-much." She finished the end quickly. Harry was a bit too shocked to be incensed.

"He was just grasping for anything to throw back at Hermione, Harry. He doesn't really think that about you." Harry just stared at her blankly. "Well… he didn't stop there either… he… insinuated that perhaps the only person who admired you more than yourself was her. That's when she slapped him."

Harry was dumbfounded at _that_. Hermione admire him? That much? That's a pretty low blow for Ron to be throwing around, especially when it was so blatantly untrue. Harry didn't entertain the notion that Hermione might admire him very long at all. _She_ was the one at the top of class, who always seemed to be right, even when he didn't listen to her. If anything, Harry admired _her_.

"Needless to say, the whole ordeal was probably a bit traumatic for Luna, who just wanted to talk to Ron privately." Harry nodded, looking down at his untouched breakfast.

"Thanks Ginny. I think I'll go see how Hermione's doing." Harry jumped up without waiting for a response and trekked off towards the Gryffindor common room. The walk gave him time to go over the exchange in his head. He shuddered at Ginny's crass sense of humor. Why oh why had she mentioned _anything_ about Dean's _bits_!?

Climbing through the portrait after producing the password, Harry glanced around the room to find only Neville there. He was sitting at a table in the far corner, hunched over a piece of parchment. That seemed bit… odd… come to think of it, what had Neville been doing so early this morning?

Just as he was about to open his mouth and greet the boy, Hermione descended from the girls dorm, giving him a faint and tired looking smile as she came into the room. Neville glanced up at her, then followed her gaze and noticed Harry for the first time. Feeling a bit awkward, Harry motioned towards the plush chairs near the empty fireplace, which would afford Neville a bit of privacy.

"'Lo Hermione. Feeling better?" She smiled a bit more openly to him before nodding.

"Yes. I just needed a bit to collect myself." A heavy silence fell between them.

"Erm… Ginny explained what happened to me—" Hermione interrupted him shaking her head.

"I don't want to talk about that right now; it's too frustrating. Ron's just going to have to apologize for it when he's good and ready." She smiled again, but it looked a bit… empty to Harry. "Ron will probably be busy for the rest of the day now that he's had the opportunity to talk with Luna. I'm fine, but I would feel much better if I could spend the day relaxing with a friend." She looked at him expectantly. "Would you be willing to put up with me for the rest of the day?"

Harry let out a boyish laugh, flashing her a grin. Had that been a serious question?

"Sounds like a splendid way to spend the day!" He stopped for a moment, an almost confused look spreading over his face. "Do you want to go to the library or something?" She shot him an icy glare, but it carried a good-natured reprimand in it.

"Honestly Harry, is that all you think I enjoy doing?" Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. He hadn't spent any days with just Hermione since Fourth year when Ron had stopped talking to him, and during that time Hermione had been focused on helping him prepare for the Triwizard Tournament. To be perfectly honest, Harry wasn't entirely sure _what_ Hermione enjoyed doing other than reading books.

"Ummm… I… well that is… I'm not sure…" Hermione stared intently as Harry trailed off. He was hoping she'd jump in right about now to save him, but it seemed she was interested in hearing him finish the thought. "Perhaps a game of chess?" Hermione scoffed as she rolled her eyes.

"Well, since it appears that you don't know how to socialize with anyone except Ron, I think a good plan would be to retrieve the Marauder's map and spy on him and Luna." Harry did a double take.

"What?" It wasn't like Hermione to joke about that sort of thing. "Are you serious?"

"Come on, Harry. It's a Saturday, I don't have anything left to study until Professor McGonagall gives me the new book I've been waiting for, and Ron is about to make a complete fool of himself in front of a girl that for some reason finds his many qualities endearing." Harry just continued to stare. "Well, are you going to get it then?" She began tapping her fingers against her folded arms in lieu of tapping her foot.

"Uh, right then." Harry sprang up and darted off towards the boys dormitories.

"And don't forget the cloak," Hermione called. Neville looked up briefly watching Harry run off.

Within a few minutes Harry and Hermione were trudging through the grass outside the entrance under the Invisibility Cloak.

"He's up by the reading tree," Harry told her, having glanced at the map once more.

"Quietly…" Hermione whispered as they came up towards the pair who were sitting underneath one of Hermione's favorite spots. 'The Reading Tree' as the trio had come to call it was a lone Birch tree on a hill overlooking a quiet part of the lake which was walled on one side by a sheer cliff. The combination of the cliff face and the hill made the tree a shaded place to sit with a wonderful view. As would be implied, Hermione liked going there with a book to pass spare afternoons.

"You really think so?" Ron asked Luna guardedly. Harry and Hermione stopped walking and listened intently.

"Oh yes," she replied in a sing-song voice. "Do you not remember the hats I wore?" Ron flushed.

"Well… yes… but…" he paused for a moment. "You always wear weird hats. I didn't know you were coming to the Quidditch matches to watch _me_." Hermione cringed.

"That lout," Hermione whispered. "When a girl says she's been a fan of yours you don't call her weird."

"Ronald…" Luna trailed off with a sigh, almost as if she was expecting him to respond as he had. "Of _course_ you didn't know I was wearing fantastic hats because you were on the team. That's why I'm telling you now." She smiled as if recalling a fond memory.

"Er… yeah, I guess you're right."

"She sure let him off easy," Harry whispered. "I'd have gotten hexed with the way women have responded before."

"Wait, does all of this mean that you want to… uh… bemygirlfriend?" Harry got the feeling that Hermione would have exploded at his thickness had she been able to.

"Yes," Luna said, staring into his eyes. "I suppose that would be nice." Ron rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably and turned to look at the castle in the distance.

"Ummm… well… I guess we could go back to the castle then and… play a game of chess?" Hermione shot a glare at Harry, as if to say, '_You're as bad as him'_. Luna nodded, somewhat more solidly than normal.

"That sounds nice." Ron got up and started walking towards the castle without a glance back. Harry thought he was going to have to restrain Hermione. A few steps away however, Ron stopped and turned as Luna caught up.

"Er… sorry. I'm a bit thick when it comes to this. I probably said a few things that upset you already, so I'm sorry, even though I don't know what they'd be." He looked down at his hands, like they were covered in blood and he was wondering who's it was. "I suppose I shouldn't have started off like that."

Nervously he offered a hand to Luna, who took it gracefully and began walking immediately, tugging Ron along behind her.

"Come Ronald. I want to show you how a Ravenclaw plays chess."

Harry was about to start off after them when Hermione grabbed his arm. He looked over and she shook her head no, so they watched the pair walk off until they disappeared into the castle doors. Harry glanced at the map before removing the cloak and looking inquisitively at Hermione.

"I think we violated his privacy enough," Hermione said firmly.

"But… it was your idea!" Harry retorted. He hadn't been sure about spying on Ron at first, but after the conversation they'd just heard, Harry felt it would be much more interesting than anything else he'd do today. A grin suddenly spread over his face. "Oh, I get it. Feeling jealous now?"

The smile evaporated with the venomous look Hermione shot at him.

"Jealous!?" Hermione barked. "You think I'm _jealous!?_" Harry cowered a bit, realizing too late that it had been a stupid thing to say. Hermione squared off, like she was about to deliver a proper tongue lashing, before halting suddenly. "I am not jealous," she said simply. "Not in the least. I do, however, think that while spying on Ron might be interesting, spying on Luna isn't proper." Hermione scowled at the lake for a moment. "To be honest I didn't think she'd be that understanding. I was mostly expecting it to blow up in Ron's face."

"Just because you would have exploded at him doesn't mean all girls will," Harry said jokingly. But again, as the words left his mouth he realized it was the wrong thing to say, and Hermione snapped back at him quickly.

"Oh, is that how you see it? Most girls are wonderful and understanding and I'm a sodding prat?" Hermione didn't seem to hold herself back this time. "I suppose I'm not even actually a girl then, right?" Harry swallowed hard, unable to form a coherent response. He never liked it when Hermione was upset, but especially not at him. "You and Ron are absolutely _hopeless_. It's a miracle that magic itself couldn't arrange that Ron seems to have found a girl that understands him."

Harry knew Hermione was just upset, but the implication still stung a bit. Come to think of it, Hermione was normally so controlled… she might not be jealous but _something_ was putting her off her normal moods.

"You don't understand what something like that feels like," Hermione said. This time Harry heard tears instead of anger, and that scared him much more than feeling like he was being reprimanded. "To hear one of your best friends imply that other kinds of girls are somehow better."

"Wait, that isn't—"

"You're a git," Hermione said softly before marching off. Harry stood, watching her retreating form for a few moments before he turned back and looked at the lake. The view was really soothing… perhaps he'd sit and think for a while. Somehow he thought following Hermione would only make things worse.

"This whole day has been crazy," Harry thought out loud. "And it's barely noon." His stomach growled loudly. "Well, can't think on an empty stomach, especially after missing breakfast."

Harry picked himself up and walked back to his dorm room, careful to not bump into anyone while he still had the invisibility cloak. Returning the cloak and the map to his things, he went directly to the Great Hall where lunch was being served.

He looked around but none of his friends were there except Neville. He seemed to be examining a parchment rather fervently, and it looked as if the lunch he'd dished himself up was untouched.

"Hello Neville," Harry said, sitting down next to Neville. He startled and quickly put the parchment into his pocket. "What's that?"

"Er, nothing," Neville said, immediately putting some food into his mouth as his cheeks blushed slightly. "Jush an ashignmen." Harry gave him a skeptical look before shrugging his shoulders and grabbing some food for himself. This day had been all over the place.

Harry finished his lunch without further conversation, Neville having left soon after he arrived to go work on the assignment he supposed. It wasn't until he got up to leave the Great Hall that he noticed the odd looks Malfoy seemed to be giving him from across the room. It wasn't the usual disdain but something else… resolve?

Harry brushed it aside, giving Draco a stiff glare as he left. He lazily made his way back to the common room and decided to work on his own homework while he had some free time. He set up his things in the corner him and Ron liked to use for studying and dove into his assignment, a particularly nasty one for Charms on the mechanics of mind-altering spells, especially memory charms.

He scrawled on his parchment, trying to finish, but after several hours realized that he was still a few inches short and had no idea what else to say. How did Hermione always find more to add? Sighing, he stowed his things figuring he wouldn't be able to get any more work done today, and glanced at the window. It was starting to get dark.

There were plenty of students in the common room now, it being nearly dinner time, and he found with particular peculiarity that Ron, Hermione and Ginny were all missing from the common room. He shrugged it off and decided to go to dinner, figuring he'd find them there.

Walking through the halls, Harry got an odd feeling, as if he were being watched, and several times stopped to glance around, gripping his wand tightly, only to find himself alone. This day was turning out to be rather strange.

He entered the Great Hall and immediately spotted Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table, pointedly ignoring each other. It constantly frustrated him how they were both too proud to admit when they were wrong, but he knew better than to intervene… they simply wouldn't listen to him.

"Hey guys," he said, sitting next to Ron. "What's your day been like?"

Both of them gave him an odd look, and Ron sighed before giving him a reply.

"Different," he said shortly. "Talking with Luna was… interesting." Harry noticed his friend's ears getting red, a sure sign of embarrassment.

"Yes, well at least she's understanding," Hermione scolded. Ron scowled at her before shoving a bite of food into his mouth. Harry simply remained silent, hoping the awkward moment would pass, and began to dish up his plate.

"Well…" Ron started, clearly deciding his next words. "I think I've been a little bit harsh in how I viewed her before. Like I said, talking with her was interesting." Again Harry noticed Ron's ears reddening. Could him and Luna… well, Harry didn't really think of Luna as being 'his type', but then, he never really got to know her well enough to determine that. Perhaps there was a side of her that he didn't know. Regardless, he wanted his best friend to be happy.

"I think it's great, you and Luna," Harry said carefully, causing Ron to redden a little more. "She was really helpful last year with the DA, and… she was very helpful after what happened with Sirius." Both his friends turned their gazes directly at him, asking without saying anything for him to elaborate. He felt a little embarrassed talking about it.

"Right before the term ended she had a short conversation with me, while I was feeling depressed. It made me feel a little better, like she knew what I was going through, what with her mother and all."

The three of them nodded in unison and continued eating their meal in silence. It wasn't until they were nearly finished that Harry noticed something odd.

"Hey guys? Has Malfoy or any of his friends been in here?" Hermione and Ron both looked around the room for them before shaking their heads.

"No," Hermione said, giving him a suspicious look. "Why do you ask?" Harry shrugged.

"He was acting strange earlier at lunch. He was eyeing me with a weird look, like he knew something I didn't." Harry paused. "That usually means he's going to try something." Ron snorted.

"That little snake doesn't worry me at all."

Harry wasn't so confident, but voiced his agreement, afraid they would think he was paranoid. The trio were among the last to leave the Great Hall, and were halfway to the common room before Harry put his hand in his pockets and noticed something missing.

"Uh," he said, stopping. "I don't have my wand."

"What!?" Hermione screeched. "How could you forget that? I don't even recall you taking it out of your pocket." Harry shook his head.

"Neither do I." He checked the rest of his pockets. "It's probably back in the Great Hall."

"I'll go with you to get it," Hermione told him, starting back the way they'd come.

"Well I'm exhausted," Ron chimed in. "I'm going back to the tower and am going straight to bed. Good luck with the wand." Harry waved, and walked over to Hermione as they made their way back towards the Great Hall.

"What do you think about Ron and Luna?" Hermione pried. Harry glanced at her.

"Uh, well I do think Luna is a great person, if a bit odd." He was silent for a moment. "I don't know, I suppose that depends on how Ron feels." Hermione scoffed.

"The stupid prat is too self-conscious. He's worried about what other people will think about him spending time with Luna, but she's a perfectly good girl, and she's thoughtful as well." She seemed to think for a moment. "It frustrates me how much you and Ron seem to look past the redeeming qualities of the… people we know."

Harry was a bit startled at the accusation. She seemed a bit upset at him, and he wasn't sure why.

"What do you mean? We don't ignore the good in people… that's more like what Malfoy does."

Hermione stared at him for several seconds as they walked before looking back to the ground in front of them.

"I suppose that's true. You just have trouble seeing past your pre-conceived notions about people you know." Harry looked at her a bit incredulously.

"Are you still talking about Ron?" Hermione sighed.

"How would you describe _me_, Harry?" He was surprised by her question. What was she getting at?

"You're very smart, and very loyal." Harry paused, dropping his voice a bit. "You stuck by me even when you knew I was wrong." Hermione seemed a bit surprised at his comments, though not satisfied, which puzzled Harry further.

"Yes, well… I guess that about sums me up then." Harry was about to question her, when a sound from behind stopped them both.

They quickly turned around and saw nothing. Hermione got her wand out, and they gave each other a quick glance. Someone with an invisibility cloak?

"We know you're there." Harry said, suddenly feeling very naked without his wand.

"Is that right?" a voice from around them said. Harry's eyes widened. No! Not him! Not here!

Harry's scar suddenly erupted in searing pain, and he fell to his knees, clutching his forehead. He had to do something!

"It's… Him…" Harry spat out, and Hermione immediately turned to look all around them. Harry watched as Hermione spotted the Dark Lord, apparently behind them again, and blasted a spell at him. He watched in agony as a green bolt hit her in the chest, a look of surprise locked on her face. Time seemed to slow as she fell, her wand falling from her grip, and she hit the floor hard, completely limp.

_No... She can't…_

"What a pitiful Mudblood," Voldemort hissed, finally coming into Harry's view. "All too easy to dispose of."

"No!" Harry yelled out.

"Oh yes," he replied with a smirk. "She is in fact, quite dead. See?" Harry watched in horror as he knelt down next to Hermione's lifeless form and poked her with his wand.

"Get away from her!" Voldemort laughed in an odd, wheezing manner.

"Would you like to see for yourself?" He reached out with his long, bony fingers and grabbed her face, turning it so that Harry could see the lifeless expression it was wearing.

"Don't you touch her! Get your hands off of her!" Voldemort laughed again, reveling in his victory.

"It's really a shame. She was quite brilliant for a Mudblood. I can see why she was attractive." The comment was absolutely infuriating to Harry. Hearing _him_ comment on Hermione's attractiveness… it was simply unacceptable.

He felt a surge of strength, the pain seemed subdued, and he quickly got to his feet. She couldn't be dead. He'd get out of this somehow and get her to Madam Pomphrey.

"Now, now. Don't worry yourself too much, for you're just about to join her." Harry didn't care what he had to say, and lunged at the Dark Lord, who effortlessly stepped out of the way. Harry fell down, and quickly rolled onto his back, looking up at the terrifying figure over him.

"You…" Voldemort laughed maliciously, looking at him like a lion looks at a gazelle.

"Yes," he said, raising his wand above his head. "Me." The wand began swishing through the air. "_Avada Kadavra!_"

Harry saw a flash of green light and everything turned black.

Harry opened his eyes with a jolt. He was in his bed. He looked around frantically. How had he survived? How long had it been? Was Hermione alright?

He glanced around and saw Neville leave the room. Looking at the other beds, he saw all his classmates sleeping normally. Harry jumped out of bed and got dressed as quickly as he good, noticing that he felt completely fine. His wand was even sitting on his nightstand, where he always leaves it.

He pocketed it, and dashed out of the room, spotting Neville near the portrait in the common room.

"Neville!" Harry called out, startling the boy. Harry rushed over to him, which seemed to frighten his classmate. "Neville what happened?"

"Wh—What do you mean?" Neville replied nervously.

"What happened to Voldemort?!" Neville nearly dropped his wand at the question.

"I—uh—I don't know what you're talking about Harry…" The Boy Who Lived was beginning to get visibly frustrated.

"Surely you know about what happened! Someone had to have brought me up to my bed, though why I'm not in with Madam Pomphrey I don't know." Neville went from looking frightened to confused.

"Harry… last night you came up to bed with Ron after you two played several games of chess. No one carried you." Harry was startled by this answer. That was what he'd done the night before he'd… died…

"Uh… What's today, Neville?" The boy gave him an odd look.

"Saturday." Harry's mind raced.

"Yesterday, did I spill my cauldron in potions?"

"Yeah," Neville said nodding. "All over Malfoy's station. Snape was furious." Harry's eyes glazed over. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah…" Harry said off-handedly. Maybe it had been a dream.

"Well… I better be going then." Neville nodded goodbye to Harry and stepped out through the portrait.

_What in the world is going on? It might have been a dream, but it was so real._ Harry pondered the possibilities for a moment. It could be a vision. Yes, he decided, that had to be it. He stopped for a moment. All the visions he'd had before were of the present, not the future… he knew from experience that there was such a thing as prophetic messages, but as far as he knew, this wasn't how they came about, and he didn't think he had any special clairvoyant gift. There was only one thing to do: find Dumbledore.

Harry stepped out of the portrait hole and made his way towards the Headmaster's Office, stopping at the statues momentarily.

"Uh… Chocolate Frog? Lemon Drop?"

"Weasley's Weezes," a voice said from behind him. Harry turned to find the Headmaster looking at him curiously. "Trying to find me, Harry?"

"Er, yeah." Harry followed the old wizard up into the circular room. "I had… a vision of sorts. About today."

"What kind of vision?"

"Well, it was about the whole day really. It was like I lived the entire day, or something. The important part of it was that… Voldemort killed me and Hermione… in the castle." Dumbledore's eyes glanced at something on the far wall before looking down at his desk.

"And how confident are you that it was not simply a dream?" Harry looked at him unsure.

"Well… I don't know… it felt very real."

"Has anything from your vision come to pass yet?"

"Uh," Harry paused briefly. "I suppose. In my vision I woke up about this time and saw Neville leaving the dorm room. That was also how I woke up today. But other than that… well… nothing else in the day has had time to happen I suppose."

"Of course." Dumbledore nodded. "Did your vision show at all how Voldemort was able to get into the castle?"

"No," Harry said. "I… He just appeared where me and Hermione were right after dinner."

"Well, let me know if anything else comes up Harry, but I'm afraid there's not much to be done." He sighed. "I would suggest that you don't go about your day as you saw yourself do in your vision, as that didn't end too well. I'll be alerting Professor McGonagall to keep an eye on the situation, and we'll be looking for anything out of place." Dumbledore fixed him with a serious look. "Let me know if you see anything else."

"Of course, Professor."

Harry left the Headmaster's office and went straight to Gryffindor tower. He felt a little jittery, remembering his own death so clearly. _And Hermione…_ Harry glanced toward the window. It was starting to get lighter outside, and in an hour or so Ron would be up to go see Luna.

_Wait… if things are the same, then I might be able to help._

Harry went up the stairs to his dorm, and quietly pushed open the door. Seamus and Dean were both up, getting ready for the day. Harry looked over at Ron's bed and saw him still asleep.

"Hey Harry," Seamus said with a smile. "You're up awful early." Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I had to go see the Headmaster." Seamus and Dean gave each other a quick look before continuing to get dressed. They knew that there were plenty of things Harry might need to talk to Dumbledore about, few of them good, and they also knew that it was probably pointless asking what exactly those things were.

"Well, we've got to get going," Dean said, buckling his belt. Harry's eyes, unbidden, glanced down at Dean's trousers, before he quickly searched for something else in the room to stare at. _Dammit Ginny._

Harry waved goodbye to the pair and went over to his own bed, pulling out a piece of parchment. Perhaps it would be good if he wrote down some of the things that happened in his vision, so that he could make sure to change them. He readied his quill.

_-Fight between Hermione and Ron._

Harry paused. Hmm… he could change that by telling Ron who the secret admirer was. But how to explain it?

_-Say something to upset Hermione in common room._

Harry grinned. He could change that by helping Ron avoid his argument in the first place.

_-Listen to Ginny explain the fight._

Another item that could be avoided by fixing the first item.

_-Eavesdrop with Hermione on Ron and Luna._

Harry supposed that he didn't really need to change this item at all, although he wasn't sure how it'd work out if things didn't happen the same way.

_-Say something again to upset Hermione._

Harry paused. What had it been he'd said? He couldn't remember very well. Something that she took the wrong way, he remembered that.

_-Go eat lunch and talk to Neville._

Harry stopped again, thinking about the memory. The way Neville had acted had been very odd, like he was trying to hide something embarrassing.

_-Work on Charms homework._

Harry supposed he'd still have to do that. Although, it was rather helpful that his vision had given him a full outline for how to do the assignment.

_-Go to dinner and meet Ron & Hermione._

Another item that would probably happen the same no matter what.

_-Lose wand?_

_-Go back to retrieve it with Hermione._

This was the thing he had to be aware of he decided. Not only would he be able to defend himself if he'd had his wand, but him and Hermione would never have separated from the bulk of students. He'd have to pay close attention at dinner to make sure he didn't leave his wand lying around.

_-Pain in my scar._

_-Hermione dies._

_-I die._

Yes… he'd definitely be looking to avoid that. Harry set the parchment aside and massaged his temples. This was a rather weird situation, and he wasn't sure he could really wrap his mind around the ideas of causality. Were these things supposed to happen?

Harry reached into his pocket and checked his wand. Still there.

Ron began to stir, and Harry looked over and his friend slowly rose from his bed.

"Mornin'…" Ron said groggily, rubbing his eyes. Suddenly, he stiffened, and seemed to come fully to his senses. "Oh," he said softly, clearly recalling something. "Today's Saturday."

Ron jumped out of bed and began to dress, and started looking through his things.

"Are you by chance meeting someone this morning Ron?" Harry asked as innocently as he could.

"Er… yeah…" Ron's ears suddenly began to get red and his face got cross. "Did you read it!?" Harry looked at him confused.

"What? No!" Harry looked over the parchment he'd been using. "I… had a vision last night. About today." Ron's features softened as he waited for Harry to continue. "It was about the whole day, really. From beginning to… end…" Ron crossed his arms. "Well, anyway in my vision I asked you what you were looking for and you told me it was a note from a secret admirer that you were meeting."

"That's—" Ron cut himself short, his face turning red.

"I think it's brilliant, Ron!" Harry encouraged. "But… well it does cause a problem." Ron's shoulders stooped.

"What, is it someone mental or hideous?" Harry paused. Well… Luna couldn't be described as mental.

"No, that isn't what happens. You go down to the lake to meet her and you see Hermione." Ron instantly brightened, his face flushing with a huge smile. "But…" Ron's mirth stopped, and he stared at Harry.

"But?"

"Well…" Harry didn't really want to be the one to tell his friend, because he knew that Ron fancied her, but it was really the best thing for him, wasn't it? And that's what friends did. "Hermione isn't the one who left the note." Ron scowled.

"You're just saying that because you're jealous." Harry stared at him slack-jawed, well and truly shocked.

"What!? No! I'm not jealous at all! I don't feel that way about Hermione. The reason I say that is because you have a terrible fight with her, and she slaps you across the face, and stops talking to you. Something you say to her really infuriates her." Harry decided against going into all the details Ginny told him in his vision.

Ron, for his part, seemed to be in deep thought, as if deducing whether what Harry said had any merit. Finally, he sighed, his shoulders drooping again.

"I don't suppose you know who it is then?" Harry opened his mouth, and stopped himself. Should he tell Ron?

"No, I only saw the fight."

"So it's not Hermione then?" Ron said dejectedly. Harry shook his head.

"No. I'm sorry mate… I know how you fancy her." Ron's face got red again, and he seemed to try and sputter a reply before finally looking back at his things. "But, I think I'd much rather have a girlfriend who isn't Hermione than no girlfriend at all, wouldn't you?" Ron smiled at the thought turning back to Harry.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I got to fix my hair—"

"—because she likes the windswept look. You told me in my vision." Ron gave him an odd look before turning back to his things and searching once more.

"I'd certainly like to have a word with this other me and tell him to keep his traitorous mouth shut." Harry chuckled and watched as Ron left minutes later. What should he do? He didn't have anything else he wanted to change until around dinner time. Harry picked up the parchment and looked it over again.

"Maybe I should see how it's going." Harry put the parchment away and walked over to the window. He could probably see what was going on right now like he had before. He smiled, pleased with himself as he saw Hermione staring on with apparent happiness as Ron and Luna talked to each other. Ginny seemed to be chatting with Hermione, and they both waved before heading towards the castle.

Harry mentally congratulated himself. He'd successfully changed the day for the better, at least this small part of it. It gave him hope that he could avoid his fate later that evening. The thought made him reach in to his pocket and check for his wand again. Good, still there.

Gathering his school things, Harry trudged down to the common room to get his Charms homework done, only to find Hermione sitting at the table already. She much have come straight up to work on homework as well. She caught sight of him and brightened at seeing him carrying his books.

"That's very responsible of you Harry," Hermione congratulated. Harry nodded, setting everything up before sitting down.

"Yes, well, this assignment should be easy since I've already done it once." Hermione gave him a questioning look, and Harry looked around to make sure no one was eaves dropping. "I had a vision last night about today. About the whole day, really. It was like I lived today yesterday. Anyway, one of the things that I did in that vision was my Charms homework, so I figure it will be easier to do having already done it once."

Hermione set down her quill and glanced at his parchment before looking back up at him with a worried expression.

"Harry, what happened in your vision? You don't usually get visions without a purpose." Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes, well…" He trailed off, trying to figure out how to tell her. "I already talked to Dumbledore about it, so it's going to be alright. Told him everything. But… in my vision… after dinner…" Harry paused again and glanced around once more, lowering his voice to a near whisper. "You and me were killed."

Hermione's face darkened, and she asked him a wordless question with her expression, to which Harry simply nodded. It was Hermione who glanced around this time before speaking.

"How did he do it? In your vision."

"I don't know. One minute we were walking back to the Great Hall by ourselves to get my wand which I'd left there, and the next I was on the floor, you were dead and he was standing over me." Harry felt uncomfortable revealing such a fate to one of his best friends. "But it's not going to happen, obviously. I told Dumbledore all about it, and I'm making sure my wand is always with me, so that we don't get separated today."

"Why…" Hermione paused, giving him an odd look. "Why were you and me alone? Why wasn't Ron with us?" Harry shrugged.

"Ron said he was tired and went on without us. I don't know if he was alright." This answer seemed to trouble Hermione further, and so Harry tried to change the subject. "I know it can be changed though, because I've already changed something today."

"What's that?" Hermione asked, instantly intrigued. Harry grinned. She was cute when she was curious.

"Ron and Luna. In my vision, Ron went down and thought you left him the note, and you two had a terrible row over it. And then when you came back up I said something that upset you as well, and… well your day wasn't very good." Hermione gave him an odd look, like she wasn't sure what to think about it. "But instead, before Ron left this time, I told him you didn't leave him the note, and you two didn't fight, and not he's having a better day and so are you." Harry smiled proudly.

"I wonder if that was the best thing to do," Hermione wondered out loud. Harry gave her a slightly incredulous look.

"Of course it was the right thing to do," Harry told her. "All of us are having a much better day because of it." Hermione nodded, but didn't seem to be agreeing.

"Yes, but how will that change the other parts of your vision? The future is a tricky thing, Harry. What if the fight not happening leads to Voldemort attacking us in a different way? Then all of the things you told Dumbledore and all the things you're preparing for now are not only useless, but a dangerous distraction."

Harry stopped. He hadn't thought of that. Maybe that fight had created an opportunity that Voldemort took advantage of, but now that advantage wasn't there. Did that mean he'd try something different? Or nothing at all? Maybe it would still happen exactly the same…

"Well, we'll just have to be careful." An uncomfortable silence settled between them, and they both returned to their homework, until after only a few minutes, curiosity got the better of Hermione.

"What else happened?" Hermione asked him softly, causing him to look up from where he was writing. "I mean… with me. What else was my day like?" Harry scrunched his face up in thought.

"Well, you and me spent most of the morning together. After you slapped Ron—"

"I slapped Ron?!" Harry paused, then nodded.

"Yes. I asked Ginny about it, in my vision of course, and she told me that Ron had been throwing insults at you. He told you that you had no right to chastise him for being self-absorbed, because he thought I was self-absorbed too." Hermione's face softened, and it looked like she was about to apologize. Harry raised his hand. "He was just upset and wanted to make you angry. He then told you that the only person that adored me more than me was you. That's when you slapped him."

Hermione's expression because very odd for a few moments, like she was nervous. She seemed to be measuring her words carefully.

"Well that would explain why him and me were so upset with each other. What did the two of us do?" Harry grinned.

"We used to invisibility cloak to spy on Ron while he was with Luna."

"What?!" Hermione shrieked, looking absolutely scandalized. "That's terrible!"

"It was your idea!" Harry told her, not ready to be scolded for something that wasn't his fault. Hermione snorted.

"Well some vision. I don't see why I would ever suggest that."

"Well, you said you wanted to spend the day with a friend, and I suggested we go to the library, and you got upset with me. Told me that you liked doing other things to. So I suggested a game of chess, and you seemed further put out, and suggested the spying." Hermione listened, understanding beginning to dawn on her.

"Ah. Well." She seemed at a loss for words, and if Harry didn't know better, he'd say she looked embarrassed. "Good thing. That you changed all that." Harry gave her an amused look. She'd been scolding him for changing it a few minutes ago. But it seemed she was working on her homework again, and with a sigh Harry returned to his. It definitely was easier the second time doing it.

The rest of the day passed with very little out of the ordinary. Harry finished his homework in the early afternoon, right around when Ron came back into the common room, absolutely beaming. Harry had never seen Ron so delighted.

"Harry!" Ron called, bounding over like he had springs attached to his feet. "Harry, thank you for your, um, advice earlier today." Ron gave him an odd look. "For some reason I suspect you knew exactly who left the note, but I won't hold that against you. Today was wonderful!" Harry was at the same time surprised and amused.

"What happened with Luna?"

"I don't know why I never talked to her before," Ron said, as if that was an answer. Hermione chortled.

"Probably because you were worried about not looking cool." Ron gave her a short glare before his happiness seemed to bubble over once more, and he turned back to Harry.

"Yes, well… Luna is everything you wished most women were like! She doesn't play games and make you guess at what she's thinking, she just tells you! And she's an excellent chess player!" Ron sighed. "And she's rather fetching too, wouldn't you say? Long, straight hair… great eyes… wonderful—"

"Uh, yeah," Harry agreed, cutting his friend off. He was a bit worried about which parts Ron might begin describing. Ron's expression changed, as if a thought dawned on him, and he fixed Harry with a look of pity.

"I almost feel sorry for you mate. I bet she's about the only girl you'll find who will simply tell you what she's thinking instead of play games. Hope you find someone like that." And with that, Ron left, a bundle of energy. Hermione scoffed as he walked away, leaning in towards Harry.

"It almost sounded like Ron was describing himself," she said in a half-whisper. "A bit narcissistic, wouldn't you say?"

Harry snickered in amusement, agreeing immediately. But at the same time, he couldn't help but feel happiness for his friend. Seeing how miserable most of the day had been in his vision, Harry was very grateful to have made today better for him. In fact, if Harry allowed himself to think so, he seemed to have done nothing but make today better for everyone involved. He mentally gave himself a pat on the back.

The rest of the afternoon was consumed with games of exploding snap, which Hermione surprisingly suggested playing with Harry. He'd never seen her play, but she was very good at it, making Harry wonder just how much he didn't know about her. She'd said that it was 'to relax her mind from a day of studying', but Harry had never noticed her do such a thing before.

And so, early that evening, Hermione and Harry picked their things up to head down to dinner. Ron had left ten minutes earlier, apparently starving. He claimed to have skipped lunch to spend time with Luna, but Harry had never known Ron to skip _any_ meals. If _that_ was true, it was perhaps the biggest testament to his opinion of the Ravenclaw.

Meeting back in the common room, which was beginning to thin, Harry and Hermione walked out of the portrait hole, down the familiar route to the Great Hall. For some reason, the conversation between them seemed to flow easier, and they talked about many things, some not even school related.

In fact, the conversation with so intriguing that when Harry looked around to see how close they were, he noticed they were not even close to the Great Hall. They were, somehow, in a fifth floor corridor near the Astronomy tower.

Hermione noticed at the same time he did, and immediately drew her wand, giving Harry a meaningful look.

"How did we get here?" Harry asked quickly, shooting his hand into his own pocket to withdraw his wand.

"I'm not sure," she replied. Harry's blood turned cold as his hand felt around.

"My wand." Harry said. "It's gone." Hermione looked around frantically.

"Was this how it happened? In your vision?" Harry shook his head.

"No. It happened after dinner." He glanced at one of the portraits and saw movement. "Hey, you!" he called out the painting. "Would you get the headmaster? Tell him we're in trouble." The painting glanced up at Harry's scar before nodding and disappearing out of the frame.

"Well," Hermione started, glancing around the empty corridor. "What do you say we make a run for it?" Harry nodded, and they both took off, trying to reach the relative safety of the Great Hall.

They turned a corner and glanced behind them, when suddenly both seemed to trip, and fell forward. Hermione lost the grip she had on her wand, and it slid some ten feet from where they landed. Right as Harry began to get back up it hit him. Pain. His scar exploded in an all-too-familiar way.

_No!_ he thought. _Not like before! Not like in the vision!_

Harry looked over at Hermione, to see her transfixed on something out of his field of view. Her face wore and expression of horror and fear, two emotions he had hardly ever seen on her face.

"_Avada Kadavra!_" A beam of green light struck Hermione in the chest and she slumped over, lifeless.

"No!" Harry screamed through the pain. "Not again!"

"Again?" a familiar, raspy voice asked. "So they were right. You did have a vision." Voldemort walked into Harry's field-of-view, looking down at the boy as if he pitied him. Harry knew that the dark wizard didn't, but it was an act of power. It was a message that Harry was so helpless that Voldemort could afford to pity him.

"I was told by some of my servants that you'd gone rushing to Dumbledore this morning with a detailed account of how I was planning on killing you later this evening." The Dark Lord grinned in a maniacal way that scared Harry. "I must say I somewhat doubted the accuracy of their report, but visions have been known to occur, particularly for those close to death."

Voldemort leaned over, his grin turning into a sneer, his face less than a foot from Harry's.

"What is it that you see now?"

Harry tried to form words, last, defiant words, to show that he wasn't afraid. But he couldn't seem to convince his voice to work, and even then, he wasn't sure what he would say.

"A real pity. I had been hoping for a plan a bit more grandiose than what I'll accomplish here. I wanted to savor this moment more, but in the end, I guess all that matters is that there is a moment like this."

Voldemort raised his wand threateningly.

"Good bye, 'the-Boy-Who-Lived'. _Avada Kadavra!_" There was a flash of green light, then everything went black, and Harry opened his eyes with a jolt, and he was breathing heavily.

He was back in his bed. Quickly he glanced over at the dorm room door and saw Neville slinking out.

_Well_, Harry thought to himself, slowing his breathing, _this is strange_.

**Author's Note: **I've always wanted to do one of these. A "Groundhog Day" type story. I have so many ideas on how to do this, and yet, by its very nature, I don't have to use any of them for this story. Or I could use all of them.

This is a rather long opening chapter, and I really don't know what the "average" chapter will be like. Honestly, I started writing this just as a time waster when I couldn't seem to come up with anything else to write. So… we'll see how this goes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Something is very wrong," Harry said sternly. Hermione looked at him worried. Ron was looking on in a mix of frustration and impatience. Harry had convinced Ron to talk with him this morning, instead of seeing Luna. "This is the third time I've lived today."

"Uhhh…" Hermione just sort of gaped, while Ron seemed to get upset.

"Did you really stop me from meeting someone to tell me _that_?" Harry looked as sincere as he knew how.

"It's true." Harry snapped his fingers. "Today you're meeting someone down by the lake, right? That someone is Luna. She gave Ginny a note that said she liked the windswept look your hair got after a Quidditch match." Ron began to turn red.

"Did you read my note?"

"No," Harry said. "How would I know it's Luna? The note doesn't say who it's from. I know because I've already lived today twice."

"You mean like you've had visions about today?" Hermione asked.

"No, I mean like… this is the third time I've woken up and it's today. Every day starts with me waking up the same way, and both times so far have ended with me dying." That got their attention.

"What?" Hermione hissed. "What do you mean dying?"

"It's true," Harry said, nodding thoughtfully. "Both times Hermione and I have been killed by Voldemort. The last thing I see is the blinding green light, and then I wake up and it's today again."

Ron and Hermione gave each other a meaningful look then turned back to Harry. He knew that look. They were patronizing him. They thought he was crazy. Although, to be fair he wasn't sure that he wasn't crazy at this point.

"That's… uh… unusual." Hermione said evenly.

"Look," Harry started firmly. "Do you know of any sort of time magic that could cause this?" Hermione simply shook her head.

"Time magic isn't very well understood, and by the nature of how dangerous it is, people just don't experiment with it. Most who do end up erasing themselves from existence." Ron gave Hermione an odd look.

"If they erase themselves from existence, then how do we know they've done it?" Hermione turned to Ron haughtily.

"Ron, time magic would be extremely powerful if you could control it, yet we don't have any real records of anyone ever attempting it. Do you honestly think no one has _ever_ tried to create powerful time magic?"

"Er…" Ron seemed to consider the point. "I suppose not…"

"Well," Harry said, "I don't know if it's magic or not. I mean I would imagine it would have to be. But all the same, why in the world do I keep dying? I mean, I'd always thought that if I died that was it."

"Maybe this happens to everyone that dies," Ron offered. Hermione shook her head confidently.

"There would be at least one record of someone who cheated death and told their tale. This certainly doesn't happen to everyone."

"Then why me?" Hermione gave him a thoughtful look.

"Well, assuming that's what's happening, and no offense Harry but I'm not convinced it is, I would imagine that it has something to do with how you die. Maybe the magic that kept you alive when you were a baby is causing our timeline to malfunction."

"You mean Voldemort is doing this to me?" Hermione nodded.

"Inadvertently. I doubt he'd want you to experience the knowledge you could get if you could just live this day over and over." Harry was confused.

"Knowledge?" Hermione nodded vigorously.

"Oh yes. If you were stuck in some sort of time loop, you could do so many things without a care about the consequences. You could read books day after day, or work on new spells, or improve your own magic, or learn an instrument, or… well… the possibilities would be nearly endless."

Harry hadn't thought about that. If he was stuck in some sort of time vortex, then the least he could do is use it to make him a better wizard. Actually, he could use it to be better at anything. The thought was quickly exciting Harry.

"But how would I know that tomorrow was sure to be today." Hermione shrugged.

"I don't know. I guess if it resets every time you die, then not dying would stop it from resetting."

"Wait…" Ron remarked quickly, "are you suggesting that Harry just throw himself at You-Know-Who, hoping to die so that he can read more books? Only you would suggest that."

"No," she said quickly. "I don't even know if I believe that's what's happening. All I'm saying is that, if it were, the only way to make sure that I woke up and it was today again would be to end the day the same way I had before. And from what Harry said, it ended with him dying."

"Hmmm…" Ron started, a glint in his eye. "No consequences you say? So we could, say, do something awful to Professor Snape? Or Malfoy? And never have to worry about detention?"

Hermione looked at him sourly.

"Yes, I suppose, if it really were happening." She seemed a bit disgusted at the suggestion. "But what a waste! Think of all the things you could learn! You'd have all the time in the world."

"Hermione…" Harry said cautiously, reaching out and laying his hand on her shoulder. "I'm telling the truth. The last two days have been today… and both times… I saw you die…" Ron was silent as he watched and listened, an uncomfortable thought crossing his mind.

"Why…" he began, hesitating. "Why wasn't I there? Why just Hermione?" Harry turned and looked at Ron.

"Just dumb luck I guess. The first time you were completely beat and went ahead to go to sleep while me and Hermione went to get my wand. The second time you left for dinner early, so me and Hermione were alone walking to dinner." Ron seemed relieved.

"You know I wouldn't leave you alone, right?" Ron asked. He seemed a bit ashamed for not dying, which Harry felt was rather amusing.

"Ron, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind before." He turned to face them both, glancing between them. "Anyway, I'm not sure what I should do. Last time I told Dumbledore and it actually made me die sooner. Voldemort has spies that somehow relayed nearly everything I told Dumbledore."

"Well," Hermione said thoughtfully, "you could always study. If you are caught in a time loop maybe you could learn so much magic that you could defeat Voldemort outright." Ron snorted. Harry had to admit, the idea of him simply becoming more powerful than Voldemort was a tad ridiculous.

"Umm… where would I even start?" Harry asked her. She pulled out a piece of parchment and began scribbling. Harry peered over her shoulder, wondering what she was writing.

"Here," she said, handing it to him. "This is a checklist of areas of magic to study. Just go through it each day, learning something new. Before long you'll be much stronger." Harry looked down at the parchment in his hand.

"Er, Hermione… how am I going to use this checklist tomorrow? You won't have written it yet." She looked at the parchment, a bit stumped, and then snapped her fingers.

"The memory charms!" She dived into her pack and pulled out the charms book Harry used to do his homework the last two days. "Here, learn this first," she said, pointing to a section in the chapter they were studying.

"A Pensieve? But… I haven't… and it's so advanced…" Hermione seemed to ignore his protests, and was talking to herself.

"First we'll have to learn how to create the basin, but that shouldn't be too bad. It's a fairly simple rune arrangement, although getting that much moonstone might be a problem." She nodded to herself. "Yes, that'll work…"

Harry turned to Ron seemingly exasperated.

"This is crazy, right?" he asked. Ron shrugged.

"Not as crazy as claiming to have lived the same day three times." Harry snapped his mouth shut.

"Ah, yeah, good point."

"Don't you see Harry? If we can get you to learn how to use a Pensieve not only can you remember things, but you can prove what's happening." Harry's eyes lit up.

"You mean… I can prove to you that I'm telling the truth?" Hermione nodded, and Harry broke into a huge smile. "Well let's do it!"

"But we don't have a basin, and if you really do only have until this evening, I'm not sure we can learn it all before the day's over." Ron shrugged.

"What about the Room of Requirement?" Ron suggested casually. "I bet you could get a basin there." Hermione gave Ron a quick hug, obviously excited, and looked at the bewildered boy.

"That's brilliant Ron!"

Within a half hour, Hermione, Ron and Harry were sitting in the room of requirement, with a book from the library on using a Pensieve. A large basin to hold the memories with the correct runes was on the table in front of them, and Hermione was pouring through the volume, looking for the right way to do the spell.

The wand work was surprisingly simple, Harry thought. Most of the Pensieve's difficulty came from figuring out the right memories, and getting the basin, which was made entirely of moonstone, a very difficult substance to come by and work with.

But with the basin in front of them, it only took Hermione about two hours before she was able to pull a memory from her forehead. The three of them explored the memory, which was of the conversation they'd had earlier in the common room, before getting back to the Room of Requirement.

It took Harry nearly the rest of the day to get it work, but just a few hours before dinner, Harry was finally able to pull a memory out. It was of his first conversation with Ron, on the first day he woke up.

"Well," Ron said, "I guess that's how you knew…" Hermione was just staring at the basin, perplexed.

"This is amazing, Harry. You really are living the same day over and over."

"Yeah, but talk about a bad day," he said. "It ends with me dead." Hermione looked at him, apprehensive.

"Let's take a look at that memory," she suggested. Ron seemed to cautiously agree, but Harry wasn't so sure.

"Umm… are you sure? You… die… you know?" He shrugged. "Might be a bit odd to see." Hermione hesitated before nodding firmly.

"We need to see if we can tell how he sneaks up on you."

Harry performed the spell carefully, focusing on the right memory, of his first death, and slowly pulled it into the basin.

"Well," Ron started unenthusiastically, "let's go see You-Know-Who." The three of them cautiously entered the memory.

"There we are!" Hermione said, pointing to their other selves walking down the hallway. They watched as the other Harry stopped.

"_Uh, I don't have my wand."_

"_What!? How could you forget that? I don't even recall you taking it out of your pocket,"_ the memory Hermione stated.

"Both times I didn't have my wand," the real Harry told his friends. "Somehow it must have been taken out of my pocket."

"_Neither do I,"_ the memory Harry said. He checked the rest of his pockets. "_It's probably back in the Great Hall."_

"_I'll go with you to get it,"_ the memory Hermione said.

"_Well I'm exhausted,"_ the memory Ron chimed in. "_I'm going back to the tower and am going straight to bed. Good luck with the wand." _The trio watched as the memory of Ron slowly faded out of view.

"Is this it?" the real Ron asked. Harry shook his head, watching his counterpart.

"Not quite yet."

"_What do you think about Ron and Luna?"_ the memory Hermione asked. The real Ron stiffened a bit, and the real Hermione began to look a bit nervous.

"_Uh, well I do think Luna is a great person, if a bit odd,"_ the memory Harry replied. "_I don't know, I suppose that depends on how Ron feels."_

"_The stupid prat is too self-conscious. He's worried about what other people will think about him spending time with Luna, but she's a perfectly good girl, and she's thoughtful as well."_ The memory Hermione seemed to think for a moment. "_It frustrates me how much you and Ron seem to look past the redeeming qualities of the… people we know."_

"I can't believe you said that!" the real Ron exclaimed, rounding on Hermione.

"_I_ didn't say it! She did!"

"Yes, well she's you!"

"Shh," Harry said shortly, cutting off any further argument.

"_What do you mean?"_ the memory Harry asked. "_We don't ignore the good in people… that's more like what Malfoy does."_

"_I suppose that's true,"_ the memory Hermione said thoughtfully. "_You just have trouble seeing past your pre-conceived notions about people you know."_

"_Are you still talking about Ron?"_ the memory Harry asked annoyed.

"_How would you describe __**me**__, Harry?"_ The statement sounded just as odd to Harry the second time he heard it, and the real Hermione with him seemed to be apprehensive. He could understand, this would be like being put in the spotlight for things you didn't know you'd said. Very odd.

"_You're very smart, and very loyal."_ The memory Harry paused, dropping his voice a bit. "_You stuck by me even when you knew I was wrong."_

"_Yes, well… I guess that about sums me up then." _

"This is it," the real Harry told his friends. They looked relieved. He imagined this was a very strange experience for them.

There was a small thud nearly where they were standing, but none of them could see anything around them. The memory Harry and Hermione turned and looked right at the trio, with the Hermione pulling her wand.

"_We know you're there,"_ the memory Harry said. Right then, all three saw Voldemort simply melt into view behind their counterparts.

"Disillusioned?" Harry asked quietly. Hermione shook her head.

"No, something else."

The rest of the scene unfolded quickly, and before long, all three were back in the Room of Requirement, thoroughly shaken.

"You were right," Hermione said to Harry. "Seeing yourself die… it's a bit flustering."

"Yeah…" Harry trailed off, not quite sure what to say. The Pensieve hadn't been very helpful at discovering new information. Ron's stomach growled noisily and they all glanced at his midsection for a moment.

"Just about dinner time then, right?" Ron seemed determined to talk about something more cheerful than the cold murder they'd just witnessed.

"Right."

Dinner was much the same as Harry remembered it from his last few times living through this day. Harry chewed thoughtfully, wondering to himself if that would become an annoyance to him. He reasoned that some things he'd be locked into no matter what he did as long as this day kept repeating.

Harry took a drink of his pumpkin juice and pulled a face. It was a bit on the sweet side.

"Oy, is your pumpkin juice too sweet?" he asked his friends, eyeing his cup. They glanced at his cup, then back at him curiously.

"I suppose it's a bit on the sweet side," Ron said, giving his cup another sip. Hermione put her hands out.

"Let me try." Harry handed her his cup and watched as she took a slow gulp, her face contorting. "Yes, far too sweet."

"Ruddy elves," Ron muttered to no one in particular. Hermione glared at him, setting the cup aside and pouring a new glass for Harry, which he accepted thankfully.

They left as a group, making sure everything was in order, just in case they were attacked. The trio had waited until a large group of Gryffindors were leaving, and walked with them, hands inside their pockets fingering their wands.

Yet, nothing seemed out of place, and they arrived with the large group in front of the Fat Lady unharmed. Hermione gave him a significant look before he shrugged and stepped forward.

"Password," the portrait intoned bored.

"Hippogriff," Harry said. The effect was instantaneous. Him and Hermione fell to the floor, their lungs not working, and bodies writhing in pain. The group of students was unsure of what to do, and Ron frantically dropped to his side, trying to do something to help his friends.

Harry tried to say something but his voice wasn't working, and a taste began to rise in his mouth, similar to the Pepper-Up Potion. _Of course_, Harry thought grimly. _The pumpkin juice. Looks like it's death by poison today._

Harry glanced over at Hermione's form, which like his was slowly starting to stop thrashing. Their eyes locked, and a silent apology passed between them as Harry's vision darkened. He felt like he was falling into nothingness.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry was sitting on his bed, striking a thoughtful pose, contemplating his death. He'd woken up and decided against trying to explain anything to his friends, as he was frustrated at having to start all over on that front. Instead he found himself sitting on his bed, contemplating what to do.

Fate was toying with him it appeared. Or something. Harry wasn't sure what was going on, but yesterday Hermione had been right… it did represent an opportunity. In a sense, anyway. She'd even made that list for him… but he'd have to go by the Room of Requirement to retrieve that memory and take another look at the list.

Harry slowly pulled himself off his bed and glanced out the dorm window. Hermione was just about to have a go at Ron, which meant she'd be up here in a few. He grabbed his wand and then grabbed his Charms book and went down to the common room, waiting in one of the plushy chairs.

He'd actually been getting interested in the section he was reading on the mechanics of some new charms when he heard the portrait hole burst open, and a red-faced Hermione stomped into the room, completely distraught.

"Hey Hermione," Harry called out softly, setting his book down. A lot of the things that he'd avoided as a matter of course, like difficult conversations, or reading Charms books, seemed trivial now. After all, he appeared to have as much time as he wanted to read and do other things, and he had nothing to fear in difficult conversations, as no one would remember if he screwed them up. She looked up at him, startled at the voice. "I take it Ron's a prat."

"Yes," Hermione said, slowly walking over and taking a chair across from him. She pulled her knees into her chest and looked down at the ground between them. Harry was a bit startled. He'd never seen Hermione look or act so vulnerable.

"Would you like to tell me what's wrong?" Harry gave her a reassuring smile as she looked at him puzzled. It wasn't like him to be so… understanding and calm…

"Ron… just thought I was someone else." Harry nodded.

"He thought you left the note, right?" Harry grinned as she gave him a shocked look. "I'm his best mate, not much gets by me."

"Yeah," she said almost dejectedly. "He thought I left the note." She looked back down at the ground, obviously thinking about something.

Harry remembered… it was in his first reset, right? He'd tried to reassure her by telling her that he was sure Ron liked her and she'd gotten more upset. Perhaps a different tactic then.

"Do you like Ron?" Hermione looked up at him quickly, apparently startled by his question. "Fancy, I mean." She looked at him oddly before looking back at the floor, another dejected look occupying her face. It was several moments before she replied.

"No, I don't."

Harry was skeptical. There was very little reason for Hermione to get as upset as she apparently was without her fancying Ron. He'd said some hurtful things, but they weren't that bad. Maybe she was just still riled up.

"They don't worry about it," Harry said cheerily, giving her a warm smile. She looked at him, her features softening. "Whatever Ron said, it either wasn't true or doesn't matter. And he's probably going to be properly chastised by Ginny and Luna anyhow."

"Luna?" Hermione asked oddly. Her eyes widened. "You mean she's—"

"Like I said," Harry interrupted, chuckling. "I'm his best mate. Not much gets by me."

Hermione's fascination at this new information seemed to override whatever frustration or ill-will she'd been feeling, and her eyes seemed far off as she processed what she'd just been told.

"Yes… that makes sense. Well," she said much happier, "good for him."

"And good for Luna," Harry offered. Hermione gave him an odd look.

"Well… I'm not so sure about that." They shared a light-hearted laugh at the joke, and Hermione wiped away her tears, the smile finally returning to her face. Harry felt like a million dollars. Not only had he finally been useful to a crying girl, but it had been rather easy. All he'd had to do was listen and be supportive. And on top of that it had been one of his best friends that he'd been helping.

Their snickering died down, and Hermione stared at him for a few moments, as if she had something else to say. Harry looked at her quizzically.

"Harry, there's something—" They were abruptly interrupted as the portrait hole opened and a rather worn looking Neville stumbled into the common room with an armful of parchment. He glanced at them, his eyes lingering on Hermione for a moment and her still-red eyes, before sitting down at a table at the far end of the room and pulling out a quill without a word. Harry shrugged and turned back to Hermione.

"What were you saying?"

"Uh… never mind," she said dismissively, glancing back at Neville. "Let's get breakfast."

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry jolted forward, panting heavily. He groaned. It was rather unnerving to wake up after being killed. This time he'd been hit with a cutting curse in the neck. It had been rather painful and gruesome. Fortunately, Hermione hadn't been there this time.

Harry looked up just in time to see Neville dash out. He glanced over at the nightstand and put on his glasses, thinking. He was certain now that this was going to continue. It appeared that Hermione had been right when she'd suggested he'd keep resetting as long as he died. Harry fell back on to his pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

That meant that he'd have to learn how to beat Voldemort in a fight, and he didn't relish the thought. In fact, he felt rather scandalized at the moment. What right did fate have to do this to him? Not that he wanted to stay dead or anything, but it was still rather annoying to be trapped in a loop with very little he could do to get out.

Harry sighed and put on his clothes before rummaging through his trunk and pulling out his Charms book. He supposed that if he was going to defeat Voldemort he should start with his school work.

Harry spent the day sitting with his book, mostly ignoring the drama that he knew was unfolding around him, and though he felt a bit guilty, he made sure to avoid Hermione so that he wouldn't be forced to comfort her. In his mind, it was a bit of a runaround, since she'd be right-as-rain tomorrow morning anyway and he'd have to do it all over again.

The day ended with him once again perishing at the hands of the Dark Lord, once more his wand missing though he'd been very careful to keep track of it.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

"What are you reading?" Seamus asked Harry. He was sitting on his bed in the early morning with a large book, and that was highly unusual. Harry glanced up and showed Seamus the title before going back to his studying. "Our Charms book? But we're not even in that section of the book."

"Just reading a bit ahead," Harry said absently, not even looking up from the text. Seamus gave him an odd look as Dean began to stir, and before long to two had left to do whatever it was they were supposed to do that day.

Harry looked up from his book and glanced out the window. He supposed that he could get to know people rather well if he wanted to, what with them doing the same exact thing every day. If he had conversations with anyone, he'd know their reactions for whatever he said before he said it if he had the conversation enough times.

Harry raised an eyebrow at that thought. He had spent the last handful of days simply reading, not seeing much of a point in wasting time on anything else since it seemed he was a prisoner until he completed his task. He'd also discovered that as long as he didn't leave his dorm room after breakfast, he always got killed with the potion in his Pumpkin Juice, which was one of his favorite deaths so far, the alternatives being considered.

But this type of studying was wearing on him, and even though he knew that he wasn't really losing time, he found himself rather lonely and bored this morning. Sighing he put the book back in his trunk and decided to go get some breakfast. If he wasn't really losing time then he'd use today to relax and spend time with people. He could go back to studying tomorrow.

As he arrived in the Great Hall he noticed Hermione sitting down for breakfast as well. Of course, he realized. She'd been down by the Reading Tree when Ron had gone to the lake, which meant she'd gotten breakfast early today. He sat down across from her and gave her a friendly smile.

"Morning, Hermione." She looked up from the book she'd been entranced with and returned his smile.

"You're up early." Harry shrugged in reply, reaching for the bacon.

"Was getting a bit of studying in for Charms." Hermione's brow arched in disbelief. "Oh come on, it's not _that_ crazy to believe I've been studying."

"I suppose," she replied, as if measuring out her words. "Have you finished to section on memory charms?" Harry nodded as he grabbed a biscuit and began making himself a bacon, egg and biscuit sandwich.

"Yeah. The section on which parts of the mind they affect was rather interesting. I hadn't thought about it before, but spells like _Obliviate_ only deal with experienced memory… none of the memory charms deal with learned skills."

Hermione's eyes lit up like it was Christmas, and she sat, a bit dumbfounded, unsure of how to reply.

"That's… yes, that's what I found interesting too. I still haven't found a charm that alters non-experiential memory, though I suppose there must be one. It would certainly be useful for learning new things."

"How's that?" Harry asked, taking a big bite of his makeshift breakfast sandwich.

"Think about it Harry," she said in her loving yet patronizing tone. "When you learn something new, like the motion for a new spell, or how to read a new language, it becomes part of your non-experiential memory. If you had a charm to alter that part of your memory, then you could directly affect what skills you had."

"That sounds dangerous," Harry said skeptically. Hermione looked a bit guilty before sighing.

"Yes, it would be terribly dangerous. Imagine accidentally erasing someone's ability to speak or understand speech. It would have other limitations too."

"Such as?"

"Well," she began thoughtfully. "If you were directly implanting skills into that part of someone's memory, then the person performing the charm would have to already have that skill. Additionally, if it were a skill that required muscle-memory, then they'd have to have almost identical body types and dimensions for the skill to be of any use. Otherwise it would result in clumsy actions."

Harry nodded, taking another bite. That made sense. He didn't miss how such a charm would help him speed up his current predicament, but the limitations seemed to make it somewhat useless to someone stuck in a time loop. Even if he did discover such a charm, he'd have to teach it to someone with the necessary skills, and have them perform it on them in a single day.

Additionally, Harry knew from what he'd read in the text book that adding memories was monumentally more difficult than erasing them, and he imagined that adding things to the skill memory would be just as difficult.

"Well," Hermione said, setting down her glass of orange juice. "I'm going to go have a read. I'll see you later Harry." A thought crossed his mind and he acted on impulse.

"Wait," he said as she was standing. "Don't go down by the Reading Tree."

"Why not?" she asked curiously.

"Just trust me," he said, setting down the rest of his sandwich and walking with her towards the Entrance Hall. "Ron is going to come down looking for a secret admirer in about an hour, and if you're by the tree he'll think it's you."

Hermione's eyes widened and she stopped walking for a moment before scurrying after him to catch up.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm his best mate, nothing gets by me." Harry shrugged. It was astonishing how many things that excuse seemed to explain for Hermione he decided.

"Well who's the secret admirer then?" she asked, following him outside to a good vantage point where they could see the lake shore but weren't obvious from the castle.

"Luna," Harry said, dropping down onto the grass. He smiled up at her and patted the spot next to him. "I promise this will be interesting."

Hermione slowly sat down next to him, her attention on the entrance.

"An hour you said?"

"About."

Hermione nodded absently and opened her book, though it was apparent to Harry after a short while that she wasn't actually reading. That is, unless she was reading the page about a dozen times.

"Something on your mind?"

Hermione startled at the sound of his voice, apparently forgetting that he was there. She looked at him, her mouth opening and shutting several times before looking back at her book then glancing at the entrance.

"I was just imagining how horrible it would have been if Ron had come down and decided I was a secret admirer." She paused. "He's a bit insensitive at times."

"Yeah," Harry said, thinking of the many days that had turned out just like that. "Don't worry about it though. I'm sure Ron and Luna will have a brilliant day, and we'll avoid that whole mess." Hermione nodded.

It was a bit longer before they noticed the blond haired Ravenclaw exit the school and head down by lake. From the distance they were at it was difficult to tell exactly what she was doing, but it appeared as if she was simply staring at the water.

A few minutes later Ron came out the doors and inspected the shoreline. Without Hermione under the tree, Luna was the only student out there at the moment, and the look on his face as he realized who it was turned first to disappointment, then curiosity. After all, any boy is interested in finding out what it is that a girl likes about him.

Their conversation, whatever it was, seemed to go well, and before long they were walking back into the castle. Along the way, they spotted Luna reach out and grab Ron's hand as they walked, and they could see the blush on his face all the way across the field.

Harry smiled. This was indeed a relaxing day, and he'd have to make it a point to have off days that he simply spent with his friends. He was quickly discovering the monotony was his worst enemy. Days were rather dull when you knew what was going to happen.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

**Author's Note:** I reached a block on this story somewhere in the middle, but I like how it's going. Light-hearted, and simple. This story isn't necessarily supposed to be about a complex, interwoven plot, although I suppose there's some of that.

Let me know what you think! Reviews absolutely will help me continue this story, as I don't really have a strict outline about what I'm going to do with this fic. Suggestions are welcome.

Review!!! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Well _that's_ interesting," Harry intoned idly. Ron and Hermione looked up at him from their study table curiously. Today he'd decided to spend the little effort that was required to keep the usual misunderstanding from happening so that they could all study together. He had begun to feel very lonely while reading and he had suspected that reading with both of them like he used to would help.

Like he used to… He was already thinking about his life in different terms it seemed. Harry had stopped keeping track, but he supposed it had been something close to a month. That was also interesting.

"What's that?" Ron asked, looking down at the Charms book Harry had been nosing through.

"Oh, just this bit here about Pensieves. Apparently using them has the side effect of helping order the memories in your head. Someone who uses a Pensieve often enough would be better at memorization and such."

Ron blanked and Hermione raised an eyebrow. Neither of them understood why that was interesting. Of course, Harry reasoned, neither of them _could_ understand how interesting it was to him, and for what reasons.

_I suppose that it would help me remember all my studying for the day if I skipped off and made Pensieves of it all before I kicked it_. Harry nodded to himself. Hermione and Ron exchanged a look, puzzled by their companion's odd behavior, although not yet concerned. _That really was brilliant of Hermione to help me learn it so soon. And of Ron to think of how to find a basin._

A somewhat maniacal smile pulled over his face and his two friends exchanged another, more concerned look. _I can't wait to get out of this loop and show them some of the memories..._

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry was very nervous. He really had no right to be, he supposed. If anything went wrong, tomorrow it would all be washed away. But all the same, he couldn't help himself... he was scared stiff by the opposite sex. He'd plotted out the perfect time to pull this off; early morning, after Hermione had already gone down, but before Ron left. His eyes glanced from the girl's stairs to his watch. About thirty seconds.

As if on cue, Ginny walked confidently down the stairs and began heading straight for the portrait hole. It was now or never... Harry gathered his wits and called out.

"Er, Ginny!" She stopped and looked over at Harry near the fireplace where he stood. He suddenly felt rather exposed. _Nothing to it old boy, just don't worry about what she says._ "A word?"

She crossed her arms and raised a single eyebrow in what Harry thought was actually a very Hermione expression but slowly made her way over to him.

"What is it, Harry?"

"Err... well..." Harry began to feel as if the room were especially warm. "You see... that is..."

"Spit it out," Ginny commanded, her tone rather amused. "You're acting like you're about to face a dragon."

Harry couldn't help but smirk at that remark. _Perhaps not a bad analogy..._ He sighed, relaxing himself.

"Would you trouble me for a date today?" Ginny's mouth popped open wordlessly. Harry interpreted this to mean he should say more. "I know it's rather last second and all, but it seems like a wonderful day, and well..." He trailed off lamely.

Ginny looked him up and down, her expression both shocked and curious.

"A date?" she finally repeated. "No one put you up to this?"

Harry looked at her appalled. Why on earth would she ask that?

"Of course not," he told her. Her face slowly crept into a subdued smile.

"Umm... yes. I'd like that. Did you have anything in mind?"

Harry looked a bit sheepish. He had come to the conclusion that his time loops should be used to prepare him for dealing with girls, and that had led here. He knew, rather through intuition than by any true examples, that such lessons were rather embarrassing to learn. Every guy fancied himself a charmer with the fairer sex, but while Harry shared such fantasies he was under no illusions that he was anything remarkable at the moment.

And so here he stood, with the best idea he had been able to produce from an entire day of brainstorming. And yet, he knew from stories he'd heard that it wasn't what most women would consider "romantic". Perhaps that was a quality that he didn't have?

"Uh, yeah. I thought maybe we could... I don't know... grab our brooms? And go for a fly?"

Harry watched her closely. While he was not at all versed in women in general, the attention to detail that the time loops allowed him to pay had greatly improved his ability to decipher expressions. He thought she looked somewhat disappointed for a moment, and began to mentally kick himself. But it only last for just that moment, and after was followed by an expression that Harry interpreted as resignation. As if this was the best she could expect.

Well that part was actually true, but Harry was hoping that wouldn't always be the case.

"That sounds lovely," she said, her face softening into a genuine smile. This was, after all, a _date_. And Ginny enjoyed dates. Especially from wizards as attractive and desirable as Harry. "I'll meet you on the pitch in twenty minutes."

With that, she whirled around and went right back up to her dorms. Harry felt a rush of emotion. He didn't readily identify it, but it seemed something close to excitement. And he truly was excited... he was going to go on a date with a very pretty girl who was a friend of his, and no matter what, tomorrow things would be okay.

Harry nearly skipped to the pitch, his broom ready, anxiously awaiting the rest of this day. He'd actually been somewhat attracted to Ginny before, although nothing really compelling enough to act on. When he'd been deciding on which witch would help him "train" his suave side however, Ginny had been his immediate choice. Not only did he feel comfortable with her, but he felt like he understood the way her mind worked better than most other girls... sometimes the way she thought was just the same as a bloke.

He spotted a red-haired girl running towards the pitch, broom in hand. She'd changed into clothes more appropriate for flying, and Harry thought that, it being a date, he was allowed his momentary thoughts about how they made her look very good. She came up to him panting, a much more blatant smile on her face than she'd worn before.

"Harry..." She panted a few more times, looking directly at him. "I've wanted to do this for a long time... thank you." And with that she kicked into the air.

Harry was of several minds about her admission. He was, first of all, flattered. It felt nice to know that someone was interested in having a date with him. He also felt rather miffed. If she'd wanted to do this then why didn't she say so? What was it about women that stopped them from simply saying what they thought?

Harry pushed the questions from his mind and kicked off into the air, soaring up towards the younger girl. It was all very nice, and after they parted ways a few hours later Harry walked to the Great Hall for a late lunch with an extra skip in his step.

In the end, it was one of the most enjoyable mornings he'd had since these time loops started, and he decided almost immediately that going on "dates" was something he'd continue doing until he got out of the loops.

Thinking about it logically, if he wanted to learn more about being good at this sort of thing he'd have to try this with several different girls. Because he was in a time loop and all, he suspected that going on dates, even different dates, with the same person repeatedly probably wouldn't teach him as much.

The idea actually perturbed him slightly as soon as he'd had it. He didn't particularly like the idea of dating several girls, and although none of them would remember anything so as to feel he had "cheated" on them, _he_ would remember. Perhaps some knowledge wasn't worth having.

He'd have to think that over.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry was frustrated. He was beginning to go slightly mad he was sure, and was starting to treat his life before the time loops as if it were almost a different existence. He'd always been concerned about Voldemort and since he'd learned the prophecy at the end of last year he'd been putting in more effort with his studies, but thinking about it he was almost a different person now.

He spent hours upon hours every day practicing new spells and reading text books. He'd long since gotten used to how odd the sudden change was to his friends. From their perspective he had gone to sleep and woken up a confident and driven wizard.

Knowing what tomorrow was going to be like would make anyone confident though. He'd gone on a few more "dates" with Ginny and had enjoyed each of them, but he still had shied away from asking anyone else. It just felt wrong to him.

He glanced down at his wand. This new spell he was testing out in a classroom he knew to be empty all day long was one he found very intriguing, and while it wouldn't defeat Voldemort he was hopeful that it could at least let him live past today and hopefully get past the time loops.

He'd tried moving around the castle all day long under his invisibility cloak once, but not even that had prevented his death. Harry shuddered. Voldemort had been particularly cruel that day. This spell however was remarkably difficult and provided great promise.

It created an avatar of sorts that was nearly an exact replica of you down to every last detail. This replica could talk, and think, and even interact with things, but it had several caveats. The most important one was that it was remarkably easy to tell the difference between a replica and the original if one was looking. It was rarely used by people attempting to escape from pursuers because of this. It also lasted for a fairly short period of time: just thirty minutes.

But even with these flaws Harry felt that he just might pull one over on the Dark Lord. Voldemort would have no reason to think that Harry would know such an advanced spell, especially since it was never covered in the Hogwarts curriculum. Because of that, there was a chance that he might not notice that it was a replica.

In all his deaths Harry had noticed that for whatever reason he had never been killed in a brazen manner. No duel in the Great Hall, no killing curse in the middle of a group of Gryffindors. If he was inaccessible, he was always killed by hidden means… a poison or an "accident". And when he was available, it was always away from the main group of students that Voldemort completed his task.

He had no idea why it seemed important to Voldemort that there be little collateral damage, as that didn't fit with what he knew about the dark wizard. He also didn't understand why it had to be today. Several times he'd made it extremely difficult to be killed and without fail he'd always been murdered anyway.

"Flick and swish…" Harry muttered to himself. "Bloody flicking and swishing… why can't it ever be 'wiggle your wand helplessly'?"

He shook his head and glanced out the window of the classroom. It was getting close to dinner and he still hadn't been able to perfect this spell. This was his… eighth loop? Yes, his eighth loop that he spent the entire day practicing this spell, and he still wasn't going to get to test it out.

"Let's see," Harry mumbled as he left the classroom, tucking his wand into his robes. "Need to stop by and use the Pensieve before dinner to order the memories…" His feet were carrying him on auto-pilot, and he was far away in thought planning out the next couple of loops. If everything went perfect, then he could break out of this loop in a few days with this new spell, and if he was going to break out then he should plan out his days.

For a moment he considered what Hermione had suggested almost flippantly: purposely staying in the loops in order to become a more powerful wizard, but the monotony was driving him mad. He wasn't sure that he could stand to be in this… whatever it was… longer than he had to be.

True, he'd started to mix in some more spontaneous days, and his brilliant idea of going on "dates" had introduced a lot of change into his day-to-day, but he felt so alone. He couldn't really talk to anyone about what was going on.

Harry snapped his fingers as he walked past the corridor for the third time, the familiar door appearing. He sat down in the room of requirement, beginning the process of sorting his recent memories. The daily Pensieve sessions had noticeably improved both his memory and mental acuity. Why exactly had he stopped telling his friends what was happening?

Well… it had seemed pointless, hadn't it? They couldn't help him get out, and it only seemed to bother them. But then… he knew that it was wrong. It was wrong to not tell them simply because it bothered them. He knew how much it had frustrated him when he'd been "protected" from knowing something.

And if he was honest, he needed them. It had probably been… well months really. It felt like years. He could scarcely remember what normal life was like… it was like those memories existed through the telly or something. A past life.

Without them he felt like he was losing himself, and losing everything that made him who he was, and what had made his life before this damned loop real. Harry stirred the silvery soup of memories with his wand idly. Memories…

His memories had always been a weapon against him. With the Dementors in third year, or his Occlumency training with Snape last year. Harry's eyes widened. Occlumency!

Occlumency depended very much on a well ordered mind, and his constant use of the Pensieve had greatly improved his ability to think quickly and recall things. He even saw how he was beginning to notice details better. When someone talked he was better at reading their body language, whether it was a flirty girl or a slimy git.

It explained so much! Harry was nearly dumbfounded. All of these things… Dumbledore was an expert at reading people, at picking up body language, at Occlumency… and Dumbledore made regular use of a Pensieve. He was of course a very powerful wizard and likely had skill and talent in these areas, but Harry was sure that this was part of it.

Harry quickly pulled the memories back into his forehead and sat cross-legged on the floor. He was going to test out this idea of Occlumency, and he was going to need to prepare himself. If he didn't do well… then he'd have some odd questions to answer, but perhaps that was another way out of these loops. Either way, he had decided to do this.

Harry cleared his mind of idle thought and gathered up all his emotion into a tight little ball, trying to project the idea of a uniform and smooth surface on his thoughts. After a few minutes Harry decided he was as prepared as he was going to be and set out to find his least favorite adult.

It really wasn't hard to find him. Snape was usually in his office right before dinner, and as Harry had spent two loops exploring the possibilities of pranking the foul Professor, he knew for a fact that he would be there at this moment as long as he did nothing to change that.

That was often more complicated that Harry thought it would be, he mused as he walked through the dungeon halls. A few loops before he'd gone to see Madam Pince about a book he was looking for only to find her out of the place he always found her. He'd been very alarmed at that.

It had taken him the entire rest of the day to figure it out, but Harry had inadvertently caused it by leaving the common room late enough that Hermione saw him leave, but late enough that she got only a glimpse. She'd left to find him but had run into Neville and they'd had some kind of discussion before coming to the library where, of all things, they'd gotten into some sort of row, though Harry hadn't been able to find out what about.

Pince had been on the other end of the library that day cleaning up after the argument which had sent some books flying, and she'd been in an exceedingly bad mood. To Harry, he'd thought at first that he'd done nothing different. He'd spent the day in his empty classroom studying. But that slight variation on when he left the common room had been just enough. It had given him a much greater appreciation for how complex time was, and the impact little changes could have.

Harry smiled though as he inched open the door in front of him. He hadn't done anything to change where Snape was, and the Professor looked particularly upset about something, which was just perfect. Harry took another deep breath, quickly clearing his mind once more before pushing open the door, immediately drawing Snape's gaze.

"Potter," the greasy man hissed. "I see your manners are as refined as ever, but you are _not_ welcome to simply barge into my office. Now I'm busy, so please leave."

"Occlumency," Harry said, not budging at all. "I've been practicing. I need you to try me."

Snape got a very sour look on his face, no doubt thinking of the last time they'd had an Occlumency lesson and Harry had seen a few rather personal memories of his.

"No," he said simply. "Leave."

Snape expected Harry to sulk away, or perhaps rage on about fairness or something, but what he did not expect was the look of exasperated disappointment, like one would give a naughty child.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Harry said shaking his head. "That won't do. We can't have you fuming over your memories or the emotion will make _your_ Occlumency rubbish."

Snape was absolutely incredulous. Fine then, the Headmaster would have to understand the situation later. He pulled his wand and swiped in a single motion pointing directly at Harry's face.

"_Legillemens!_"

Harry felt the force of the spell strike his mind far stronger than he recalled any of their practice sessions together, but to his pleasant surprise it seemed his mind was holding together. He was losing little trickles of memory to Snape, but it was more as if they were being slowly pulled from between his fingers instead of flowing freely out. He also found that he could drive Snape away from certain memories in favor of others.

Harry felt a nudge in his mind as Snape angled to pull away something embarrassing. It felt like he was searching for a memory with one of the girls he knew that was humiliating. Harry simply guided Snape back to the memory of the Potions Professor's face after Harry had reversed the spell last year.

Snape drew back from Harry's mind and gave him a suspicious look. The sudden display of skill had focused Snape's mind again, pushing his anger back. Something was happening. Some of the memories he'd been able to see seemed… scripted almost. They were… it was odd. They were unlike any kind of memory he'd ever seen before. He was _sure_ he'd seen two different memories that were of the same conversation only slightly differently.

"Get out," Snape spat, and Harry did, a triumphant look on his face. It had gone better than he'd hoped. Honestly he'd expected to have failed far more utterly and have Snape dragging him to the Headmaster right this moment to explain the time loop. Harry had reasoned that perhaps that would have prevented his death, but now Harry wasn't so sure.

Perhaps he would stick this loop thing out a little longer. He was going to bring his friends back in to what was happening more often he'd decided, and to see such obvious improvement in something was quite heartening. It made him feel like he wasn't stuck, more like he was just… busy. Less like life was paused, and more like he was treading water. Still working, just not at moving forward.

The thought had improved his mood incredibly, and even as he stared down the extended wand of the Dark Lord later that night he'd been smiling, which had actually seemed to perturb Voldemort more than anything he'd done before. Perhaps he'd face death with a smile more often.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

"Holy hell!" Ron exclaimed as they came out of a Pensieve. Hermione shot him a withering look, but didn't verbally scold him. Truthfully he'd voiced her reaction as well. "That's a… unique issue." Ron ran his hands through his hair.

"Yeah, and it's been a while since I went through the process of telling you guys." Harry couldn't help but smile at getting to have a real discussion with his friends.

"Why?" Hermione asked. She seemed… disappointed.

"Well…" Harry trailed off, not sure what he should say. "I guess… tomorrow if I want to continue our conversations, I'll have to do all of this over again. It gets… disheartening." He paused and looked at the glowing basin. "Sometimes that makes it feel like none of the conversations I have matter."

Ron looked a bit lost at that comment, and while Hermione seemed to feel real sympathy she also seemed to lack the words to comfort him. That was just as well though. He hadn't told them everything to get words of comfort, he just wanted to spend time with his friends.

"This…" Hermione stopped for a second, picking her words. "This could be very exciting. What have you been doing? How long has this been happening?"

Harry couldn't help but smile. Hermione had reacted this way nearly every time she'd ever learned of his predicament. She always saw the silver lining of it.

"I stopped counting a while ago, but I reckon I've probably had about two months worth of loops." Both Ron and Hermione looked completely shocked at that. "As for what I've been doing… well… I've spent a lot of it studying things… practicing."

"That's excellent Harry!" She stopped, as if catching herself. "I suppose I've suggested before that you use the loops to do just that," she mused to no one in particular.

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding. "I never even had the thought until you suggested it in the third loop."

"You've got to be kidding me," Ron said, drawing Harry's attention. "You mean to tell me that you can do _whatever_ you want, and remember it forever while no one else will, and you've been bloody _studying_?" Harry simply shrugged. "You could have been playing pranks, or peeking on the girls dorms, or—"

Ron cut himself short, a horrified look on his face as he suddenly seemed to remember that Hermione was right next to him. She'd snapped her head over at the last suggestion, ready to give Ron a right lesson, before stopping and turning back to Harry nervously.

"You… you haven't done that. Have you?"

Harry felt himself blush a bit. He'd had a few kisses on "dates", mostly a nervous kiss on the cheek or something, but he always felt terrible afterward and had nearly given up on that front. It felt like he was taking advantage of the situation to get a kiss or anything. Harry could barely imagine peeping on the girls dorms.

"No," he said softly. He cleared his throat, hoping to change the subject before they discovered anything about his dates with Ginny. "I, er… I've been mostly focused on getting out of these loops, so the studying has really been about that."

Hermione nodded in apparent agreement and Ron seemed to accept this reasoning as reasonable.

"What have you done so far?" Hermione asked, unable to mask her curiosity. Harry grinned and launched into a long explanation of the things he'd studied. By the time he was finished Hermione looked rather pleased with him, and Ron was quite obviously impressed. But it didn't take long for Hermione's approval to turn to a frown. He sighed, knowing that he must have done something.

"What is it Hermione?"

"It sounds like you've been studying almost nothing but Charms," she pointed out.

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding. "I figure I only get a single day to work with, so lots of other kinds of things, like Potions, would be useless to practice." The reasoning made sense in his head, but for some reason Hermione seemed unconvinced.

"Harry," she began, her lecture voice in full force. "There are loads of things to study that you can accomplish in a single day. You could get much better at preparing and cutting potion ingredients for instance. That's a huge part of many potions. Then there's always Transfiguration… it'd be difficult to get instruction, and having someone teach you helps with that, but you could still improve."

Harry remained silent, realizing she was correct.

"Then think of all the other things… plenty of time to study Runes or Arithmancy, or even… even things like visiting the merpeople."

Both Harry and Ron looked at each other. _That_ opened up a lot of interesting ideas.

"You know," Ron started slowly, "you could learn loads about the Forbidden Forest, what with having no fear of death and being able to do everything exactly the same way."

"Yes!" Hermione said, giving Ron a rather pleased expression. "That's exactly the sort of thing that you don't necessarily learn from a book that would be perfect to look into." Harry did a double take. Did he just get scolded for relying too much on books? From Hermione?

"Ummm… but I thought books were 'a perfectly acceptable source of knowledge'," Harry told her, using his best Hermione voice at the end. She blushed slightly before looking mildly indignant.

"Harry, being in a time loop changes a lot of things. Normally books are one of the best ways to learn something because you don't have to have any special skills and you don't take any real risks. But for you, you could do anything today."

She was right. He had been relying too much on books, but he wasn't sure that she was right about the reason. True he could attempt anything with nearly no consequences, (which was a thought that actually made Harry shudder considering how easy it would be to do something truly evil), but the things that were most difficult to learn later was probably about _people_.

He didn't say it at first, because he felt she probably wouldn't approve, but he hadn't really considered just how much he could learn about nearly anyone. All he needed was _one_ perfect day where they spilled a secret or revealed some small bit of information. Actually, he realized, even for people that refused to tell him more than a small bit about the truth in any situation could reveal far more than they intended. He could simply learn a different partial truth over several days and piece them together.

It seemed a bit manipulative, but Harry reasoned with himself that anyone who he really would have to hoodwink would be someone who deserved it, like Malfoy. And anyone who didn't deserve it would be the kind of person that would deserve his trust in the first place.

Harry looked between his two best friends. What secrets would they have? Should he not try to learn anything about them?

"Hey Harry," Ron started, the silence starting to get to him. "You wouldn't happen to have a memory of the Charms homework, would you?" Hermione scoffed at him but Harry just rolled his eyes and pulled out the relevant memory into one of the basins.

"There you go mate. Don't know if I did it right though since I never got to turn it in and have it graded."

Ron simply shrugged and within moments had fallen into the blank faced trance he'd come to recognize as the sign that someone was inside a Pensieve. Harry turned back to Hermione, his earlier line of thought nagging at him.

"Hey Hermione," he said tentatively. She turned from Ron and looked at him. "What… what do I do about the things I learn about people? What if someone tells me a great big secret? They won't know that they've told it to me by the next day, but I'll still remember it and—"

"Harry," she interrupted. "Did Ron or I tell you something personal like that? In an earlier loop?" Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"No, but what if you do! What if you don't know yet about the time loops and you do! Maybe I didn't tell you guys about the loops that day, or maybe I haven't done it yet but I'm going to…"

Hermione narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously.

"Harry, have you been doing that with anyone else?" He shifted his weight again, unable to keep the guilty look off his face. He mumbled something. "What was that?"

"I said I've gone on a few dates."

Harry watched her expectantly as her expression blanked for several seconds. He could almost see it in her eyes as the dozens of implications of that statement flitted through her mind.

"With who?" she asked finally. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Why does that matter? Wouldn't it be the same problem no matter who it was?"

"Yes," she said evenly. "But if it was someone that you have to be around often enough then it could be awkward if you… ever… you know, do something."

The color drained from Harry's face. He could barely make his voice work the horror was so great.

"_Hermione!_" he finally shouted. "I can't believe you'd suggest that." She simply rolled her eyes.

"I wasn't _suggesting_ anything," she murmured. "You're a boy… boys… do things like that." Hermione stopped as if that explained everything. Harry looked at her fiercely for a few moments before glancing down at the floor.

"It was Ginny," he said. "And _I_ don't do things like that. That'd be like raping someone!" To his utter amazement, Hermione shook her head in disagreement.

"Not really Harry. Unless you actually do force someone into something like that, they ultimately agreed to it in that timeline, no matter what kind of knowledge you have. It would be a bit manipulative if you for instance preyed off of their fears or something, but an honest relationship… there'd be nothing wrong with that, even if they don't remember.

"It actually almost makes sense," Hermione said thoughtfully, as if considering it herself. Harry was absolutely speechless. "You know, about how there'd be no risk about pregnancy or disease or anything like that. Even in a branching universe the impact would be reasonable."

"Branching universe?" Harry asked confused. She nodded.

"Oh yes. Think about this Harry… you could very well be getting thrown back in time every time you die, or maybe each time you die _that_ universe continues on and you simply move to another one. If that were the case, then from your perspective time would loop, but each day you'd create a different version of our universe that continues on without you."

Harry was absolutely horrified. If that was true then there were literally dozens of universes where his friends were living in a place with no one to oppose Voldemort. In several of them Hermione had even died. How were her parents doing in those? Hermione seemed to understand his thoughts from the look on his face because she interrupted his thoughts.

"Don't worry about it too much Harry. From what both the Muggle and Magical worlds understand about branching universe theory, it's highly unlikely that everything about today would be exactly identical every time you wake up if the universe did carry on. It's more likely that the instant you're killed the entire universe is destroyed and you're taken back to a different point in it."

Harry gaped at her. That was supposed to make him feel better? The _entire universe_ was being destroyed because he drank poisoned pumpkin juice or got cursed to death?

"Well, not really destroyed I guess… it's more like history to that point is destroyed when it rewinds."

"You mean like… the things that happened that day undo themselves back to point where I wake up?"

"Yeah," Hermione said, nodding. "That's the most likely scenario." She waved her hand dismissively. "Regardless, the point I was making was that as long as people willingly tell you something or… _do_ something, that there's not really anything wrong with getting to know people. I trust your judgment."

Harry felt an odd sense of pride at that. He'd honestly thought Hermione would be a lot more infuriated by the concept, but perhaps he should have expected her to be practical about it. He forgot… the day he'd been stuck in was an unusually emotional day for both Ron and Hermione.

"Thanks," he said with a smile. "Anything you want me to remember tomorrow?"

Hermione gave him a look of mock indignance.

"Heavens no!"

"What's that?" Ron called out from next to them. He was obviously done looking at Harry's Charms work. Harry collected the memory back into his head while Hermione explained.

"Harry was asking me about the ethics of learning about people when they couldn't remember their decisions." Ron just stared at her blankly. "He was asking about whether or not it would be alright to learn someone's secrets when they couldn't remember telling you."

Ron turned on Harry with remarkable speed.

"You've never done that to us, have you?" Harry simply shook his head. Ron sighed before looking back at Harry a bit more curiously. "Ever done that to Malfoy?"

"You know," Harry said thoughtfully. "I have barely seen him at all since these loops started. I don't remember having a single conversation with him the whole time."

"You don't think he's responsible for the loop, do you?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"Honestly Ron," Hermione interjected. "I doubt even Voldemort himself is powerful enough to do this to Harry." There was a moment of silence between them. "Still, it does seem odd. A day where not a single way you've lived it has caused even one conversation with Malfoy?"

It was odd indeed. But with all the time in the world to figure it out, Harry decided that it could wait until he wasn't spending time with friends.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

**Author's Note:** Hmmm… I have a couple of interesting places I've decided to go with this. The concept of a branching universe doesn't work at ALL like I described it in real-world physics, but that's why they call it "fiction".

I don't know why, but having Hermione basically approve of the practicality of sex _literally_ without consequence was just too good to pass up. I'm really enjoying writing this story. ^_^


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Once again Harry was cursing his own stupidity. If Hermione had been stuck in this loop it never would have taken her this long to notice something so out of place, yet he'd simply written it off as something he didn't care about. The thing was with as much time as he wanted, he could afford to care about everything. And that was something extremely strange.

Yesterday he'd spent the entire reset trying to track down Draco, yet had only seen a single purposeful albeit brief trip from the Slytherin common room. This struck Harry as strange, since he'd remembered seeing Draco at one of his meals on his very first loop, but it hadn't really set in just how strange until this loop, when he'd come back for further observation and had almost immediately seen Draco leave early in the morning.

Under cover of his invisibility cloak Harry had followed closely, afraid of losing his target, suddenly wondering why he hadn't been using the Marauder's Map for all these loops. Again, he could only tack it to his own stupidity and complacency. What if the map would help him avoid getting killed? Draco was heading to the library it seemed, which while only slightly odd by itself, was _very_ odd when one took into account that his brief trip yesterday evening had been to get food.

The trips were at different times, to different locations. As far as he knew, Harry wasn't doing anything that could impact anyone in the Slytherin common room, but as Harry knew such things were difficult to track. It was possible that he was indeed varying what he was doing enough to cause these changes, but he was having trouble figuring out how.

Draco made a bee-line for the section on rituals, which was also strange. While rituals weren't taught at Hogwarts in classes, it was something that more adept students were encouraged to study on their own. Many rituals were incredibly powerful, and not dark magic either. But such things were rarely studied by Sixth Year students, and to Harry's admittedly limited knowledge Draco was not at all versed in rituals.

"Bollocks," Draco muttered, staring at the pages of the book he'd picked off the shelves. No one but Harry was anywhere nearby, and he was safely concealed. "This one takes two days." He placed the book back onto the shelf.

Harry's heart skipped a beat. He had moments of stupidity but he couldn't keep his mind from racing to the hopeful conclusions that line brought. Why would Draco entirely dismiss a two day ritual unless he didn't have two days? And how many times had Harry looked at some potion or other type of magic during these loops and said the same thing?

Calming himself, Harry listened some more. Draco probably was just too impatient to use a two day ritual where one would do, he told himself. Although... there was the bit about him leaving the common room at different times...

"Ah," Draco said, interrupting his thoughts. "This is more like it. Six hours. Let's see... one pint human blood... I can use mine. What else... milkweed? I'll have to raid Snape's office for that. Oh, goddammit! How the bloody hell am I supposed to get unicorn blood by the end of today?"

Harry watched the blond boy put the book back on the shelf and glare at the stack in front of him. His pulse was racing... what if Draco _knew_ about the time loops? Was there any real risk? If he didn't, then tomorrow no one would remember anyway.

Harry glanced around the library and found no one within view. No one, that is, except Draco. Now... how to do this?

"Draco," Harry whispered. The blond immediately looked around, trying to find the source of the speech.

"Potter?" Draco said after a moment. "Yes, of course, you're under your ruddy cloak, aren't you."

"Yeah, hold on." Harry slowly pulled off the cloak, setting it down next to his feet. He honestly wasn't that worried about it, since tomorrow was a new day. "Looks like you're interested in some rituals, Malfoy. Any particular reason?"

"Have you been spying on me?" Draco asked affronted. His face contorted into a very familiar scowl.

"That's not really important. You're different than the others." Draco froze as if he wasn't sure what Harry was getting at. And that was true enough; Draco had no idea what he meant by that comment.

"Are coming on to me Potter?" The question was spat out with enough disdain to understand, much to Harry's relief, that it wasn't something Draco was hoping for. Still, it was a revolting question, and Harry reacted accordingly.

"Arg! That's disgusting... what I mean is that today you did something different than yesterday." Draco's eyes narrowed and Harry pressed on. "Yesterday you only left the common room once in the evening for dinner. Today you left early to come here."

Draco's eyes flashed in surprise before he tried to cover it up with a look of confusion, but it had been enough, and Harry was now certain that Draco was aware of the time loops.

"What _are_ you talking about Potter?"

"I know you know about them Draco. The loops." Harry drew his wand menacingly. "What do you know about them."

"Oh, that's bloody brilliant," Draco replied with a snort. "Something happens and you assume that _I_ know what it is." He looked at Harry's wand with a bored expression. "Go ahead. Hit me with a Killing Curse. It happens everyday."

Harry nearly dropped his wand.

"What was that?"

"I said go ahead and do something. I don't care."

"You..." Harry lowered his arm and brought the wand to his said. "You've died?"

"Same as you," Draco said, giving him a pointed look. "You've been dying every day, right? Then you wake up and it's today again."

Harry nodded, too shocked to really say anything.

"Yeah, I suspected so. He never comes after me until he's finished you, but he always does." Draco gave Harry an extremely bitter look before glancing down at his own hands. "My family did so much for the Dark Lord. So many things... and yet, the day he comes to claim victory over the wizarding world by killing you he kills me too to punish my father for his disloyalty."

Draco looked back up at Harry and he was startled to see that Draco actually looked very emotionally broken up. Harry had trouble feeling pity for someone who was lamenting not being alive to celebrate the aftermath of his death, but at the same time, the wheels in his head were turning.

Both he and Draco were experiencing time loops. Both he and Draco were killed today by Voldemort. Both he and Draco were trying to find a way out. Hermione would find all of this very interesting the next time he told them about the loops.

"You knew?" Harry finally asked. "You knew I was probably stuck in this bloody loop, and you said nothing? For God sakes, maybe we can work together and find some way out!"

"Work with you? Thanks, I'd rather die every evening." Harry growled in frustration.

"Look, _Malfoy_, I don't like you anymore than you like me. But this isn't exactly your normal circumstances. We're sixth year students... how are we ever going to get out of this by ourselves?" Harry paused. "Besides... hasn't it been difficult... you know... not having anyone to talk to?"

For the briefest of moments Harry saw something akin to sympathy in Draco's eyes. The look that he understood what Harry was saying, and yes it was something that bothered him. But in an instant the look was gone and had been replaced with utter contempt.

"Piss off," Draco told him before he simply walked away. Harry was so shocked and hurt that for a few seconds he didn't respond; he just watched the blond boy walk towards the library entrance. He didn't realize until this very moment how alone he'd felt. He hated Draco, but he wanted _anything_. Any human contact, any way to build on yesterday with someone. And he'd been open with Draco, asking about needing someone to talk to, but he'd been utterly crushed for it.

"Fine then!" Harry yelled, drawing several people to stare at the book case he was behind. A few heads poked out to see who was shouting, but Draco just kept walking. "Go do whatever you bloody well like! See if I care when I get out of this and you're still dead!"

"_Mr. Potter_!" Madam Pince said tersely, walking towards him. "Don't use—"

"Save it," Harry said, shocking the faculty member into silence. Harry picked up his cloak, put it on in front of everyone then left.

That evening was a particularly bad one in which he'd been dragged up to the Headmaster's office for a chat and Dumbledore had decided he might have been possessed or taken over somehow, only for him to be poisoned to death, painfully, by the Veritaserum provided by Professor Snape.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Although Harry had intended to bring Hermione and Ron in on the loops more often, the revelation that Draco was remembering every day had thrown his plans into disarray. He'd simply gone through the motions the last three days, accepting his death as it came.

But today his anger and depression had cooled, and he found himself outside in the courtyard thinking. Draco had been trying to get out of the loops using rituals, which was actually very smart. Time looping is just the sort of thing that rituals might fix from what he'd heard, which admittedly had been very little.

Draco hadn't seemed surprised to find out that Harry could remember what was happening, yet he also hadn't seemed to know. It was like he'd simply accepted it. Hadn't he noticed that Harry had been doing something different every day?

Although, now that Harry thought about it, it seemed Draco had spent almost his entire time in these loops trying to find a way out in the Slytherin dorms. For him it might have looked like the little details of every day always changed, since Harry's changing actions would always cause the day to play out slightly differently.

Even so, Harry was still upset in a way he'd never been before. Sure, he'd been upset at being wronged, or at someone doing something cruel, but this was… he had been at someone else's mercy and they'd spit in his face. It was different.

Harry sighed and looked at the books in front of him. One was a beginner's guide to Arithmancy and the other was a book of basic Runes. After a bit of thought he'd decided that knowing how to craft or change spells, and learning about how spells actually worked, were pursuits he had both the time and the need to learn. Perhaps if Draco worked on the rituals and found something… but no, he couldn't depend on that.

He heaved a weary sigh and set into the books with a drive to study that only an unsolvable problem could create. In truth, Harry had rather drastically improved his study habits, perhaps one of the positives of the whole experience. He no longer saw the things he studied as simply tools of the moment that he was learning for a special purpose, although there was some of that. Instead he found himself genuinely interested in learning new things.

In learning new things Harry found variety and surprise. His life no longer offered him the unexpected, and he was finally beginning to appreciate what Hermione had always loved about learning: the unexpected reality was often just as intriguing as the other things Harry had spent his time on before.

And that's really what it was all about… learning meant experiencing something he hadn't before, and these loops had given him quite an appreciation for that aspect of life.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

"Hmm…" Hermione uttered thoughtfully. "I see what you mean."

Harry had stopped both of his friends early this morning on their way to breakfast and decided to bring them in on his strange reality early in the day, giving them more time to spend together as a trio.

"That's a right mess," Ron added. They were in the Room of Requirement and had just finished a wide array of memories. "Well… what do we do?" Harry shrugged.

"I don't know. To tell the truth I've been working on getting out of this… whatever it is nearly since it started several months ago. Or at least I think it was several months ago. I stopped keeping track of the days almost right away."

"Probably pretty lonely," Hermione commented. Harry nodded.

"Draco remembers everything too, but he didn't want to talk or help."

"What!" Ron was flabbergasted. "He's stuck just like you are? How?"

"I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with how we die. Both of us are killed by Voldemort today, him always after me."

"That's strange indeed," Hermione said. "And a bit sad," she added. "It's a shame that Ron or I don't remember anything when we wake up. Then we could all work on this together."

"Work?" Ron groaned. "It'd be nice to just kick back for a while with no consequences."

"It's not as nice as you'd think," Harry told him with a grimace. "Sure I can switch around Snape's potion supplies, or play pranks on people, or just spend every day playing exploding snap, but when you know what to expect every single day those sorts of things just seem… pointless. I can't really describe it."

"Wait," Hermione interjected. "You said both you and Draco are killed by Voldemort, right? But wasn't I killed a few times by his wand?"

"Yeah," Harry replied slowly, pondering her point. "You didn't remember anything the next day though."

"So it's related to your guys' death, but that isn't the actual cause."

"I s'pose," he said slowly. Hermione's face lit up.

"Well then, we might be able to reproduce the effect, if we figure out what it is."

"Well sure," Harry agreed, not really seeing where she was going. "But I mean, what good would reproducing the effect do? Not only that, to reproduce it we'd have to know what causes it, and trust me, I've spent a lot of time trying."

"But then it's possible that _we_ could remember."

Harry looked at her, then at Ron. Having them remember everything? Keep all their memories? That would certainly be nice, but Harry wasn't so sure. He knew that it would be next to impossible for him to simply give their memories to them. He'd talked about it briefly with Hermione when they'd discussed memory charms in an earlier loop, how it was very difficult to add memories to someone's head, and he'd gone off and researched it after, just to make sure, because he'd seen the potential if he'd been able to. But it was just too difficult.

That left only what Hermione was proposing: figuring out what was causing this loop and using that to bring in her and Ron. Of course, perhaps if they figured out what was causing it they could also use that to get Harry _out_.

Harry shook his head. He didn't even know where to start, and from conversations with past Hermiones he wasn't sure she did either. In none of the previous loops had Hermione been helpful in the least in figuring out what was behind his situation, and all the various ways she'd tried to explain it had made it sound like the universe itself was simply toying with him.

"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt," Harry thought out loud. "But I don't know where to start. And if you get on some trail today, how am I supposed to tell you tomorrow what you found out?"

"Then that will be the first thing I work on. Some way to transfer just knowledge, not memories." Hermione thought for a moment. "I'm going to the library to look a few things up. At dinner—you've never died before dinner, have you?" Harry shook his head. "Right, then at dinner I'll give you the list of books I read, and any pages that I found something that might be useful. That way me tomorrow won't waste time on what I do today."

Harry thought about it for a moment. He'd probably be able to remember a list of page numbers if he looked it over during dinner.

"Right then. That'll work."

Harry glanced over at Ron who was giving him an uncomfortable look. He looked back at Hermione who was packing up her things. It didn't exactly feel right to be lounging around while she was off trying to find answers for him…

"What would you like to do Ron?"

"Err…" Ron glanced over at Hermione who had stopped packing to listen to his answer. "Why don't we try and figure out what Malfoy is doing?"

Harry thought that one over. He knew pretty well what it was Malfoy was doing, but maybe he was in a better mood today. Or perhaps he'd be interested in collaborating on helping others remember. Goodness knows if he could figure out a way to help someone remember yesterday he could have people like Dumbledore helping him.

For that matter, perhaps he could simply ask Dumbledore some questions…

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Then maybe we can ask the Headmaster a few questions about time loops."

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

"What is it Potter? I'm busy." Harry and Ron glanced at each. "I thought I was clear last time we talked."

"What are you looking at now?" Harry asked, completely ignoring Malfoy's comments.

"Don't you get it Potter? I'm _not_ going to help you."

"You know Malfoy," Ron started, "You're a real—" Draco had his wand out and at Ron's throat almost faster than either of them could see. Ron's eyes widened as Harry pulled out his own wand slowly.

"I should kill you now," Draco said softly. He paused, the tension in the air shocking Ron, although it was an everyday occurrence to Harry. Draco's arm fell slowly and his wand returned to his side. "But then I'd lose the rest of the day."

"Draco," Harry growled out in frustration. Ron was still too stunned to say anything. "This gets us _nothing_. There's a _reason_ this is happening. We need to figure out what that is."

"A _reason_?" Draco repeated incredulously. "A _reason_ this is happening? Perhaps reality simply hates us, my four-eyed inferior." Draco looked down at the book he had been reading. "No, there's no reason."

Harry was unsure about what Draco meant. There was obviously more to what he was saying than the words he was saying, but what? Ron was just beginning to get his voice and focus back, and was setting in on Malfoy like he was ready to strangle the boy.

"Come on," Harry said, turning to leave. Ron looked over at him as he began to walk away. "Let's go."

Harry had hoped perhaps that Draco has simply been in a bad mood. That he'd regretted what he'd said, and was willing to work together. That he'd be willing to share information.

Well it was clear now that Draco simply didn't want to help. But... but despite that he'd given Harry a piece of information anyway: Draco knew something about what was causing these loops. The question was how much.

"Let's go see the Headmaster," Harry said, Ron finally catching up.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

"I see," Dumbledore replied. The old man simply stared at Harry for several moments, though Harry could feel no attempt at Legillemency coming from the Headmaster. "I suppose you have something to convince me of what you're saying."

Harry was confused. He was sure that Dumbledore would simply use his Legillemency to determine whether or not he was telling the truth, but he hadn't even felt the beginning of an intrusion.

"Err, I could show you a memory in a Pensieve," Harry suggested. The Headmaster simply fixed him with a calculating stare for a few more moments.

"No, that's quite alright." He reach out into one of the small bowls on his desk and grabbed a wrapped candy. Ron fidgeted a little, not sure what to do. "What is it that I can do for you?"

"Uhhh..." Harry hadn't really thought about it. "I'm... not sure." He looked around the room for a moment before coming back to the Headmaster. "Perhaps... if you know anything about Time Magic?"

Dumbledore looked down at the wrapper in his hands for a moment, popping the sweet into his mouth.

"Time doesn't choose people lightly, Harry." The Headmaster looked back up at the confused boy. "What is happening to you is something I cannot help you with. You must make things right." Harry's mouth was agape.

"But... what do you mean?"

"Expand your horizons Harry. Time is calling you." Harry's vision began to blur, and he had a sudden sensation as if he was falling. The world was turning black, and the voice of Dumbledore was softly echoing in his ear. He felt dizzy, like he was going to pass out, and the world was fading...

He jolted upright and glanced around. Neville slipped out the door and it appeared that he was back at the beginning of this forsaken day.

"What happened?" Harry asked himself out loud. He heard Ron toss over in the bed next to him. That had been strange... he couldn't be certain, but... Harry was pretty sure that he hadn't died. He glanced at the night stand and grabbed his glasses, putting them on. Well, today was a new day.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

**Author's Note: **Yay! Another chapter. This one isn't as long as I'd like, but hopefully I'll get the next one out faster to compensate.

As always reviews are appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Harry was confused. Dumbledore had obviously known something about what was going on, and the loop had ended early somehow… As best as Harry could tell, Dumbledore wasn't in the loops with him and Draco, so how had he known something about them? And even Draco seemed to know something for that matter.

Harry sighed, setting the book he was reading aside. He'd spent the last few loops trying to figure out what exactly was happening, and was being met with almost no success so far. It was frustrating, and he was beginning to get discouraged.

Some motion to the left caught Harry's eye and he turned. He was in a rather secluded corner of the library, and it was rare that someone came to this section. Harry scowled. It was Malfoy. And he was heading directly for a book he had been planning on reading soon.

Grabbing his wand, Harry stomped off, ready to have it out with the slimy bastard.

"Oi," Harry called out. Malfoy turned and then growled. It actually made Harry stop for a moment, the sound was so feral and unwelcoming.

"Leave," Draco said simply.

"No, I'm reading that book," Harry said, pointing the tome in the blond boy's hands.

"That'll be difficult, seeing as I'm taking it back to my room."

Harry's wand shot a small burst of blue sparks at a nearby bookcase, turning the entire thing green with yellow spots.

"The hell you are."

Draco lifted an eyebrow apparently amused. If anything that made Harry even angrier.

"Do you mean to raise your wand at me?" Draco asked. "Bad idea Potter."

"You're nothing b—" The rest of Harry's sentence was cut short as almost quicker than Harry could fathom, Malfoy had drawn his wand and petrified him. Harry teetered dangerously before falling sideways. The pain of falling was actually a bit surprising, since he hadn't been able to brace himself.

"Tsk, tsk, Potter. While you've been frolicking around wasting time, I've been getting stronger." Malfoy turned him over so that they could look each other in the eyes. "Let this be a lesson for next time."

Harry could hardly believe it as Draco used a cutting curse to sever his neck, bringing near-instant, if not painful death. Harry shot out of bed, adrenaline pumping. Neville looked at him startled for a moment before continuing out the door.

_I… can't believe he did that…_ Harry thought slowly. _He killed me._

Harry had half a mind to run straight down to the dungeons and settle the score, but as much as he hated to admit it, the little ferret had been right: that had been a level of magic and wand-work that he couldn't compete with. What had happened? How had he advanced so far?

Harry stopped that train of thought for a moment. Just how long had this been happening? Harry slowly sifted through his memories, trying to come up with a rough estimate. Eight months? Nine? Somewhere in that area.

The thing was that if he'd really committed himself, he could understand how someone could advance so far in that amount of time. The truly galling thing is that Harry had always felt that his magical core was stronger, but Draco had quite simply shown that to false, at least right now.

_That's it,_ Harry thought to himself. _Enough of this feeling sorry bullshit, or wallowing in my own pity. The universe or whatever has put me here, and I'll be damned if I let Malfoy of all people become my better._

Harry grabbed his wand, and writing supplies. It was off to the library.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry jolted awake and almost immediately grabbed for his wand and glasses. Now he'd see if it had worked.

Staring down at the bedspread in front of him Harry went through the motion for a conjuration, but the incantation was slightly different.

"_Reversi Conjurous!_"

Instantly there was a sickly looking paper in front of him with the word "Congratulations!" on it. Harry studied it briefly, too excited to speak. It had worked… mostly. The paper had been malformed, and the letters were a bit wavy, but it has worked. He could probably fix both of those by modifying the wand motions.

Harry had spent the last 50 loops taking his first stab at creating a new spell from all the arithmancy he'd been teaching himself, and it had worked. Before him was a piece of paper that he'd written the previous night.

The spell had actually been fairly simple conceptually once the idea struck him. Conjuration created a physical object through will, thought and magic, and it shouldn't be too much of a problem to conjure anything you could remember. Even a fully written essay. The problem was that doing that required you to have every word memorized, and every detail of the paper, and so on, or you'd subconsciously introduce deformities.

But what if you could save something for later? What if you could unconjure? The idea had seemed fairly simple. A spell that transformed matter into a perfect representation of that conjuration within your own mind.

Figuring out the arithmancy for such a spell had actually been very simple once he'd thought through the idea. Then it had just been a matter of fine tuning things like how the unconjuration was stored within the mind.

But this was the first time he'd tried re-conjuring something he'd unconjured, and although he needed to improve it, he had succeeded.

Harry was terribly excited. The key had been to store the saved conjuration in his magical core instead of in his mind. That way he avoided the massive headache that was trying to filter through the mind for something. Harry wasn't sure why no one had ever thought of this… or maybe they had and he'd just never heard about it before.

It seemed to him that such a spell would be far too useful for anyone to simply ignore. But now for the second part of his experiment…

Harry dug through his bag, looking to see if it was there… and it wasn't! _Yes!_

Outside of a time loop anytime you unconjured something its matter became information, and it stopped existing until you re-conjured it. But he hadn't quite been sure what would happen within a timeloop. Would he now have two copies of the parchment he'd used, one with writing and one without? Or would the existing parchment disappear when he conjured the new one? It seemed the latter.

_Now one last experiment…_

Harry turned on the table next to him and went through the motions again, tweaking them ever so slightly to try and improve the result. Harry watched as the parchment, fresher looking this time, once more appeared in front of him, and the one on his bed faded.

_So, once I've unconjured something I can re-conjure it as many times as I want, but only one copy can exist at a time… That makes sense I guess, especially since I can't actually remember the parchment, what with it being in my magical core instead of my brain._

The possibilities with this new spell began to swim in his head. What were the limitations? Could he use it to save smells? Sounds? Could he do it to animals? People? That was something to think about he realized. If the spell worked on people, then he'd be able to… he'd be able to bring Hermione and Ron into the loops… or anyone for that matter. He'd just conjure the previous day's version every morning and it would replace the existing person.

He'd never heard of anyone conjuring anything living though, although that could just be because of the previously troublesome fact that you needed to be aware of all the details you wanted to preserve. This spell quite nicely got around that.

_Wait, that won't work_, Harry realized. The more complex the item, the larger of a tax it was on his magical core save such a thing, and since he'd be saving another magical core… the person would need to completely trust him or their magical core would reject the process. He also needed to have at least twice as powerful a magical core as the sum total of his saved conjurations. Fortunately as part of his experimenting he'd been able to 'overwrite' and 'delete' conjurations from his core, which he presently did to the parchment from yesterday.

But still… he should be able to use such a spell quite effectively. _I wonder what would happen if I tried to unconjure myself?_ Harry thought to himself. That sounded like a rather dangerous idea, even for someone who died every single day.

"Now," Harry said, speaking out loud for the first time. "About that magical core."

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry figured out early on in these loops that it was useless to worry about anything when it came to his body, so exercise wasn't a viable option as far as he was concerned. Improving one's body did help strengthen a magical core, which theoretically would carry over, even if the body did not, but the amount of effort for gain was so small he felt it wasn't worth it. He didn't even brush his teeth anymore, and hadn't bathed in at least 6 months, all without anyone making a single comment.

So for strengthening his magical core he was left to the monotonous task of repeatedly casting some of the spells he knew, essentially exercising his core itself.

But beginning to look at things differently, after three loops of this type of practice, he began to notice that he had little tweaks here and there to some of his simplest spells that would make them more effective. For instance he'd practiced reducing the motions for _alohamora_, and had succeeded in getting it to where it was almost an imperceptible twitch of the wand. That could be handy for unlocking doors without someone noticing.

In fact many of the more basic spells could find very useful and sometimes deadly applications if properly used. He discovered quite by accident that a tickling charm could be fatal if it went through the skin and struck the heart, leading to irregular spasms that killed within 30 seconds. Literally tickled to death.

After that incident he'd begun trying to think of new and out-of-the box applications for some of the simple spells. They had the advantage of using very little magic and having very simple and quick motions.

So it was that he spent the next six months worth of loops with a regular routine: in the morning he'd spend three hours researching in the library, his topics ranging widely. From there he practiced repeated casting until lunch, grabbed a quick bite, and went back to casting. He'd do that until about 4 pm, at which time he'd spend an hour on Occlumency and an hour on his Pensieve, then go to dinner and die.

Because he woke up every day as if he'd had dinner the previous night, there were times when he didn't even have meals or drinks. He'd gone completely without food for a week once before it had started to drive him a bit crazy. He had been hungry the whole time, just not starving.

It was a far more common occurrence for him to skip lunch and sometimes dinner.

It wasn't just his basic spells that had improved either. He'd gotten his Patronus so powerful that he was sure he could invade Azkaban if needed. As well he'd nearly perfected his reverse conjuring, and one of the first things he'd used it for was to keep a journal of his days, so that he could at least now start keeping track of how long it had been between two events.

His journal said he had practiced for nine months since Draco killed him, and he hadn't seen him since. Coward was probably too scared to show his face after that stunt. But this nine months had seemed to fly by, as opposed to the first nine months which had been tortuous and frustrating.

Perhaps it was all about progress.

He felt like he was accomplishing something now, a thing he hadn't truly appreciated until it was nearly impossible to have.

But he was finally at a point where he felt like he had made enough improvement to start working on other things. So after nine solid months of what amounted to combat training and exercising his magical core, all the while studying new magic and creating a few new spells himself, Harry decided to branch.

At first he'd thought about simply learning a new topic, like Herbology which had always kind of eluded him. But after thinking on it for a while he decided instead to focus in on some of the skills that most wizards neglected.

The night he'd decided to move on to new types of activities he'd made a list of useful skills that most wizards and witches neglected, and had simply been going down it ever since. He'd learned to pick locks, to drive (with judicious use of an illegal port key), he'd become marginally able to understand Japanese and French, and had moved on to one he'd always secretly desired.

"Uh…" Hermione walked into the common room, flustered from her argument with Ron, only to be completely dumbfounded to find Harry sitting on a table with his feet on a chair slowly strumming an acoustic guitar.

"_Don't worry, about a thing…"_

"Harry?"

He stopped playing and turned to her, giving her a quick smile.

"Hey Hermione, would you like a song to cheer you up after that nasty fight with Ron?" She stared at him, apparently unable to form words. "Well, I thought you might like it but…"

"No," Hermione barely whispered. She cleared her throat. "No," she said louder. "Please, that sounds lovely."

He began to strum a lazy tune, the same one he had been playing before.

"_Don't worry, about a thing… cause every little thing, gonna be alright…"_ She stared at him, completely at a loss. He knew how to play guitar? Why had he never mentioned that in the five years they'd known each other? From the way he was playing, it sounded like he'd recently picked it up. Had he been hiding it from them? Where had he even been keeping a guitar?

"…_Smiled with the risin' sun… three little birds… pinch on my doorstep… singing sweet songs, melodies pure and true…"_

She recognized the song as a Reggae hit by Bob Marley. He was into Reggae? When he finished she was silent, and he just set the guitar down, looking at her expectantly. After a few moments he finally spoke up.

"Well I didn't think I was _that_ bad…"

"No, it was wonderful." She gave him a smile and a hug. "It was exactly what I needed." He gave her a toothy smile.

"Great. Well have a wonderful day 'Mione. I'll be back later." She watched as he took out his wand, waved it in an unfamiliar way over the guitar, only for it dissolve into nothing before her eyes. What spell was that? As if trying to out do himself, she watched and he pulled a small pebble out of his pocket and disappeared in a blue flash.

_A port key?_

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

He had spent twenty loops preparing for this day, and dammit that old man wasn't going to stop him today. He watched as right on time Dumbledore left his office. Harry counted to exactly seventeen then closed to the statue in 24 steps.

"Pudding," he said lowly. The goblin moved to the side, and he quickly deactivated the alarm charms at the bottom of the stairs. He'd chosen this moment in the day to raid the Headmaster's office because he'd left it fairly unprotected, with most of the charms inactive, and only the basic ones up, which he felt confident enough to detect and break.

Going up the stairs he skipped the seventh and thirteenth, then entered the door at the top walking backwards. So far so good. Now this was the part that had got him last time. Fawkes turned to Harry, eyeing him speculatively.

"On my honor as a wizard I promise that I will leave no lasting damage to this office nor impede the plans and desires of its owner."

It was an easy promise to make when you only needed to last to the end of the day.

Fawkes squawked once, apparently satisfied. Harry let out a sigh, before turning to the shelf to the left. He'd been itching for months to get in here and inspect some of the items. He knew that Dumbledore was gone from the office for only seven minutes, but it would be enough.

Harry took out his wand and began to reverse conjured everything on the shelf. There would be hell to pay for today, but tomorrow he'd be able to silently "borrow" them one at a time from Dumbledore without much fuss.

"What are you doing?" an unfamiliar voice from behind called out. Harry jumped before turning and realizing that it was one of the paintings. The headmaster, Phineas.

"What I need to," Harry replied, returning to the task at hand. Within 45 seconds he had every item on that shelf reverse conjured. He quickly made for the door, leaving down towards the lake as quick as he could.

No doubt Dumbledore would find him soon. He was sure at least some of the items had to have some kind of spell on them that would reveal the culprit, even if they'd been blotted out of existence.

But tomorrow would be fantastic.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

Harry looked down at the paper in front of him. It was a variation on his reverse conjuring that he'd developed, but for a different purpose entirely. He glanced at the date markings in his journal. Nearly three years had passed since the loops began. For over half that time he'd been almost entirely devoted to becoming a stronger wizard, or learning new and interesting things.

He was becoming conversant in Japanese and French, and had started learning German. He had learned dozens of muggle skills, including guitar and his current pet project, learning the piano.

But tonight none of that was on his mind. He'd had a successful test yesterday, so he was ready to put his plan into action. The day had been fairly good… he'd made sure that everything about the day had gone as well as he could be troubled to make them. It was important… today he was going to try to break the loops.

Reverse conjuring all his papers Harry left the empty classroom he'd commandeered and went to the Great Hall for dinner. It was the only place he'd be able to find the ones he was looking for.

Hermione and Ron had bickered some more over their meal, but Harry paid them almost no attention. His hand slipped down to the pack at his side… he could feel the invisibility cloak in it. The distraction should be arriving in three… two…

"What's that?" Seamus asked, pointing towards the door. A few Griffyndors turned to check and saw an odd looking man they'd never seen before, disheveled and scrawny. Within seconds most the Great Hall quieted as they turned to look at the newcomer. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow before standing.

Harry caught Malfoy's eye briefly. He knew who was responsible, which was okay. They were the only two in the loop, so any time something changed it was one of their faults.

"Excuse me," Dumbledore called out. "Who—"

The man raised a wand at the room and a small explosion went off in the air. Within seconds the Great Hall was filled with smoke, and the acrid smell of sulfur, screaming students, and worried Professors making their way over to the new threat like mongeese chasing a snake.

It was a waste of time, Harry new. All the explosions had come from his wand, not the strangers. In fact, the stranger wasn't even real. It was one of his decoy clones he'd learned about early on heavily disguised. The motion of the "stranger's" wand had been enough to cover his own casting which is what he'd wanted.

In the confusion Harry slipped on his cloak and headed straight for Malfoy.

"_Stupify!"_ Harry said, catching the unprepared and confused boy before he knew what was coming. He quickly turned and found Professor Snape. _"Stupify!"_

There was too much smoke and bedlam for anyone to really notice, at least not after he transfigured both of them into marbles. Harry walked silently out into the hall under his invisibility cloak, going straight to the fifth floor, knowing he had about five minutes until Voldemort showed up.

Harry took the two marbles out of his pocked and transfigured them back into Draco and Severus. Harry took a deep breath before pulling out his wand.

"_Reproba formo."_ There was a purple flash and Harry watched in satisfaction as Draco turned into a perfect copy of The Boy Who Lived. For whatever reason, transfiguring people for short periods of time into inanimate objects was fairly standard 5th year material. But transfiguring them into other people wasn't so easy. It was so difficult in fact, that no one had ever done it. Not when there was Polyjuice Potion.

But this spell that Harry had developed wasn't actually a transfiguration. It was more like conjuring over the top of something. Which had the added benefit of being a permanent change, which was a necessity for what he was planning.

Her turned to Snape, repeating the spell and watching as the Professor shrunk into a perfect copy of Draco. This was the part that made him squeamish, but he didn't hesitate. He took the outer clothing off both of them, replacing Draco's clothing onto Snape, and his own onto Draco. As the finishing touch, Harry took off his glasses and put them on Draco, looking down. Thirty seconds. He enervated both and dashed off under the invisibility cloak, hardly daring to stick around.

But then, he had to. He had to know if it worked.

Harry found the best hiding spot he could, cast every charm he knew for remaining hidden, and brought up his Occlumency to protect the Dark Lord from accidentally finding by way of stray thought. The two not-so-innocent victims were horribly confusing and disoriented, only adding fear to the mix when Voldemort appeared behind them.

It was over almost immediately. They were both hit with killing curses and slumped to the ground, dead. Harry felt a knot in his stomach tighten. He'd just committed murder. Murder… to get back to reality. Perhaps his grasp on reality had spun out of control, but no, he was past second guessing. It was… necessary.

"Now, time to gather the forces," Voldemort said before disappearing. Harry walked over to the bodies, ensuring they were dead.

"What happ – oh Merlin!" McGonagall pushed by Harry, frantic as she checked the corpses for signs of life. "Oh poor Harr – Harry? Is that you?" He turned to look her in the eyes.

"Y-Yes."

"But then—" McGonagall tried a few spells on the bodies, coming up empty each time. After her fourth different spell she finally got something because she gasped audibly, looking back to Harry. "This is Draco and… and Professor Snape. What happened?"

"Voldemort…" Harry said simply.

It was a whirlwind of activity for the next three hours. He spoke with Dumbledore and McGonagall about the events he'd witnessed. Several times, his stomach cold with guilt, he came close to revealing his part in the plot, but held his tongue.

The spell to transform them the way he did was so different and complex that neither even bothered to suspect Harry of casting it.

After a while he'd been dismissed back to his dorms where his friends were waiting. Filling them in on the edited version of events, he feigned exhaustion climbing the stairs and heading straight to bed. As he began to drift to sleep, the guilt began to unwind, replaced with excitement and hope. Tomorrow would, _literally_, be a new day.

Harry awoke with a jolt again, probably out of habit at this point, and slowly reached over for his glasses on the night stand. Putting them on, he frowned. They were missing a scratch they'd gotten yesterday. Harry paled. No. It couldn't be. He glanced at the clock. No. Not again. Let's see there's the two taps from the bird three floors up, three… two… one…

Ron coughed loudly, grunting before turning over and returning to sleep. Harry choked silently. Right on time…

It was still today… or yesterday rather. It wasn't fair, Harry complained inwardly. He'd done everything he could have… he'd even survived for the very first time in three years. But he's been sent back. Why?

But even as the question crossed his mind he had a pretty good idea of what it had to be. Neither him nor Malfoy could die. Drat, that meant the little wowzer was back down stairs, probably fuming at the way he'd been killed… and the Universe wasn't going to let them out until they helped each other survive.

Harry sighed. Maybe these loops would last longer than he thought.

**:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::xxxx:::::**

**Author's Note:** Lots of people didn't like Malfoy being in the loops. Well that's tough. ^_^ Because I do.

I hope you found something in this chapter to enjoy.


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